Jim the Splitter
The bard who is singing of Wollombi Jim
Is hardly just now in the requisite trim
To sit on his Pegasus fairly;
Besides, he is bluntly informed by the Muse
That Jim is a subject no singer should choose;
For Jim is poetical rarely.
But being full up of the myths that are Greek -
Of the classic, and noble, and nude, and antique,
Which means not a rag but the pelt on;
This poet intends to give Daphne the slip,
For the sake of a hero in moleskin and kip,
With a jumper and snake-buckle belt on.
No party is Jim of the Pericles type:
He is modern right up from the toe to the pipe;
And being no reader or roamer,
He hasn't Euripides much in the head;
And let it be carefully, tenderly said,
He never has analysed Homer.
He can roar out a song of the twopenny kind;
But, knowing the beggar so well, I'm inclined
To believe that a 'par' about Kelly,
The rascal who skulked under shadow of curse,
Is more in his line than the happiest verse
On the glittering pages of Shelley.
You mustn't, however, adjudge him in haste,
Because a red robber is more to his taste
Than Ruskin, Rossetti, or Dante!
You see, he was bred in a bangalow wood,
And bangalow pith was the principal food
His mother served out in her shanty.
His knowledge is this - he can tell in the dark
What timber will split by the feel of the bark;
And rough as his manner of speech is,
His wits to the fore he can readily bring
In passing off ash as the genuine thing
When scarce in the forest the beech is.
In 'girthing' a tree that he sells 'in the round',
He assumes, as a rule, that the body is sound,
And measures, forgetting to bark it!
He may be a ninny, but still the old dog
Can plug to perfection the pipe of a log
And 'palm it' away on the market.
He splits a fair shingle, but holds to the rule
Of his father's, and, haply, his grandfather's school;
Which means that he never has blundered,
When tying his shingles, by slinging in more
Than the recognized number of ninety and four
To the bundle he sells for a hundred!
When asked by the market for ironbark red,
It always occurs to the Wollombi head
To do a 'mahogany' swindle.
In forests where never the ironbark grew,
When Jim is at work, it would flabbergast you
To see how the 'ironbarks' dwindle.
He can stick to the saddle, can Wollombi Jim,
And when a buckjumper dispenses with him,
The leather goes off with the rider.
And, as to a team, over gully and hill
He can travel with twelve on the breadth of a quill
And boss the unlucky 'offsider'.
He shines at his best at the tiller of saw,
On the top of the pit, where his whisper is law
To the gentleman working below him.
When the pair of them pause in a circle of dust,
Like a monarch he poses exalted, august -
There's nothing this planet can show him!
For a man is a man who can 'sharpen' and 'set',
And he is the only thing masculine yet
According to sawyer and splitter -
Or rather according to Wollombi Jim;
And nothing will tempt me to differ from him,
For Jim is a bit of a hitter.
But, being full up, we'll allow him to rip,
Along with his lingo, his saw, and his whip -
He isn't the classical 'notion'.
And, after a night in his 'humpy', you see,
A person of orthodox habits would be
Refreshed by a dip in the ocean.
To tot him right up from the heel to the head,
He isn't the Grecian of whom we have read -
His face is a trifle too shady.
The nymph in green valleys of Thessaly dim
Would never 'jack up' her old lover for him,
For she has the tastes of a lady.
So much for our hero! A statuesque foot
Would suffer by wearing that heavy-nailed boot:
Its owner is hardly Achilles.
However, he's happy! He cuts a great 'fig' -
In the land where a coat is no part of the 'rig' -
In the country of damper and 'billies'.
poem by Henry Kendall
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The Stringy-Bark Tree
There's the whitebox and pine on the ridges afar,
Where the iron-bark, blue-gum, and peppermint are;
There is many another, but dearest to me,
And the king of them all was the stringy-bark tree.
Then of stringy-bark slabs were the walls of the hut,
And from stringy-bark saplings the rafters were cut;
And the roof that long sheltered my brothers and me
Was of broad sheets of bark from the stringy-bark tree.
And when sawn-timber homes were built out in the West,
Then for walls and for ceilings its wood was the best;
And for shingles and palings to last while men be,
There was nothing on earth like the stringy-bark tree.
Far up the long gullies the timber-trucks went,
Over tracks that seemed hopeless, by bark hut and tent;
And the gaunt timber-finder, who rode at his ease,
Led them on to a gully of stringy-bark trees.
Now still from the ridges, by ways that are dark,
Come the shingles and palings they call stringy-bark;
Though you ride through long gullies a twelve months you’ll see
But the old whitened stumps of the stringy-bark tree.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Bill the Bullock-Driver
The Leaders of millions, the lords of the lands,
Who sway the wide world with their will
And shake the great globe with the strength of their hands,
Flash past us—unnoticed by Bill.
The elders of science who measure the spheres
And weigh the vast bulk of the sun—
Who see the grand lights beyond aeons of years,
Are less than a bullock to one.
The singers that sweeten all time with their song—
Pure voices that make us forget
Humanity’s drama of marvellous wrong—
To Bill are as mysteries yet.
By thunders of battle and nations uphurled,
Bill’s sympathies never were stirred:
The helmsmen who stand at the wheel of the world
By him are unknown and unheard.
What trouble has Bill for the ruin of lands,
Or the quarrels of temple and throne,
So long as the whip that he holds in his hands
And the team that he drives are his own?
As straight and as sound as a slab without crack,
Our Bill is a king in his way;
Though he camps by the side of a shingle track,
And sleeps on the bed of his dray.
A whip-lash to him is as dear as a rose
Would be to a delicate maid;
He carries his darlings wherever he goes,
In a pocket-book tattered and frayed.
The joy of a bard when he happens to write
A song like the song of his dream
Is nothing at all to our hero’s delight
In the pluck and the strength of his team.
For the kings of the earth, for the faces august
Of princes, the millions may shout;
To Bill, as he lumbers along in the dust,
A bullock’s the grandest thing out.
His four-footed friends are the friends of his choice—
No lover is Bill of your dames;
But the cattle that turn at the sound of his voice
Have the sweetest of features and names.
A father’s chief joy is a favourite son,
When he reaches some eminent goal,
But the pride of Bill’s heart is the hairy-legged one
That pulls with a will at the pole.
His dray is no living, responsible thing,
But he gives it the gender of life;
And, seeing his fancy is free in the wing,
It suits him as well as a wife.
He thrives like an Arab. Between the two wheels
Is his bedroom, where, lying up-curled,
He thinks for himself, like a sultan, and feels
That his home is the best in the world.
For, even though cattle, like subjects, will break
At times from the yoke and the band,
Bill knows how to act when his rule is at stake,
And is therefore a lord of the land.
Of course he must dream; but be sure that his dreams,
If happy, must compass, alas!
Fat bullocks at feed by improbable streams,
Knee-deep in improbable grass.
No poet is Bill, for the visions of night
To him are as visions of day;
And the pipe that in sleep he endeavours to light
Is the pipe that he smokes on the dray.
To the mighty, magnificent temples of God,
In the hearts of the dominant hills,
Bill’s eyes are as blind as the fire-blackened clod
That burns far away from the rills.
Through beautiful, bountiful forests that screen
A marvel of blossoms from heat—
Whose lights are the mellow and golden and green—
Bill walks with irreverent feet.
The manifold splendours of mountain and wood
By Bill like nonentities slip;
He loves the black myrtle because it is good
As a handle to lash to his whip.
And thus through the world, with a swing in his tread,
Our hero self-satisfied goes;
With his cabbage-tree hat on the back of his head,
And the string of it under his nose.
Poor bullocky Bill! In the circles select
Of the scholars he hasn’t a place;
But he walks like a man, with his forehead erect,
And he looks at God’s day in the face.
For, rough as he seems, he would shudder to wrong
A dog with the loss of a hair;
And the angels of shine and superlative song
See his heart and the deity there.
Few know him, indeed; but the beauty that glows
In the forest is loveliness still;
And Providence helping the life of the rose
Is a Friend and a Father to Bill.
poem by Henry Kendall
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Song of the Shingle-Splitters
IN dark wild woods, where the lone owl broods
And the dingoes nightly yell—
Where the curlew’s cry goes floating by,
We splitters of shingles dwell.
And all day through, from the time of the dew
To the hour when the mopoke calls,
Our mallets ring where the woodbirds sing
Sweet hymns by the waterfalls.
And all night long we are lulled by the song
Of gales in the grand old trees;
And in the breaks we can hear the lakes
And the moan of the distant seas.
For afar from heat and dust of street,
And hall and turret, and dome,
In forest deep, where the torrents leap,
Is the shingle-splitter’s home.
The dweller in town may lie upon down,
And own his palace and park:
We envy him not his prosperous lot,
Though we slumber on sheets of bark.
Our food is rough, but we have enough;
Our drink is better than wine:
For cool creeks flow wherever we go,
Shut in from the hot sunshine.
Though rude our roof, it is weather-proof,
And at the end of the days
We sit and smoke over yarn and joke,
By the bush-fire’s sturdy blaze.
For away from din, and sorrow and sin,
Where troubles but rarely come,
We jog along, like a merry song,
In the shingle-splitter’s home.
What though our work he heavy, we shirk
From nothing beneath the sun;
And toil is sweet to those who can eat
And rest when the day is done.
In the Sabbath-time we hear no chime,
No sound of the Sunday bells;
But yet Heaven smiles on the forest aisles,
And God in the woodland dwells.
We listen to notes from the million throats
Of chorister birds on high,
Our psalm is the breeze in the lordly trees,
And our dome is the broad blue sky,
Oh! a brave frank life, unsmitten by strife,
We live wherever we roam,
And our hearts are free as the great strong sea,
In the shingle-splitter’s home.
poem by Henry Kendall
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Zero The Hero
Accept the fact that you're second rate, life is easy for you
It's all served up on a gold plated plate
And we don't even have to talk to you
Your face is normal, that's the way you're bred
And that's the way you're going to stay
Your head is firmly nailed to your tv channel
But someone else's finger's on the control panel
What you gonna be, what you gonna be brother
Zero the hero
Don't you wanna be, don't you wanna be brother
Zero the hero
When you gonna be, when you gonna be brother
Zero the hero
Impossibility impissibolity mother
Really a hero
You sit there watch it all burn down
It's easy and breezy for you
You play your life to a different sound
No edge no edge you got no knife have you
Your life is a six-lane highway to nowhere
You're going so fast you're never ever gonna get down there
Where the heroes sit by the river
With a magic in their music as they eat raw liver
What you gonna be, what you gonna be brother
Zero the hero
Don't you wanna be, don't you wanna be brother
Zero the hero
When you gonna be, when you gonna be brother
Zero the hero
Impossibility impissibolity mother
Really a hero
You stand there captain we all look, you really are mediocre
You are the champion in the acme form book
But i think you're just a joker
Your facedown life ain't so much of a pity
But the luv-a-duckin' way you're walkin' around the city
With your balls and your head full of nothing
It's easy for you sucker but you really need stuffing
What you gonna be, what you gonna be brother
Zero the hero
Don't you wanna be, don't you wanna be brother
Zero the hero
When you gonna be, when you gonna be brother
Zero the hero
Impossibility impissibolity mother
Really a hero
song performed by by Black Sabbath
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The School
I WAS not drowsy though the scholars droned.
Hearing the music that they made of Greek,
Whenever Helen's unforgotten face
Sent other young men whisking off to war;
Hearing much mention of the hecatombs,
And Pericles, and fishes that were purple,
Temples in white, and trees that they named olive;
And thinking always of proud Athens shining
Upon her hill, that slanted to her sea:
Equipped with Grecian thoughts, how could I live
Among my father's folk? My father's house
Was narrow and his fields were nauseous.
I kicked his clods for being common dirt,
Worthy a world which never could be Greek;
Cursed the paternity that planted me
One green leaf in a wilderness of autumn;
And wept, as fitting such a fruitful spirit
Sealed in a yellow tomb.
The Lord preserves his saints for Christian uses.
He sent a pair of providential eyes.
They would have sat in any witless head,
Although I deemed them deep as classic seas,
As strange as any woman written smiling,
And much more near; the merest modern eyes,
The first my Athens faced; and yet her lamp,
It flickered rather low.
Then he commanded me to scrutiny
As to a fingered thing of no great matter,
A circumstantial sorry little coin.
A friendly thing, I owned, to lie so warm
Against the side of any friendless man;
And in the hand--O if the happy hand
Accommodate the cunning rounded scepter,
Then is dominion seated in that palm,
And coveting is seated in men's eyes.
Make haste, my hands, about your own inclosures!
And what were dead Greek empires to me then?
Dishonored, by Apollo, and forgot.
poem by John Crowe Ransom
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Arbiter of Administration
Arbiter of administration
Arbiter of administration you are
The man full of knowledge to disseminate
The man whose emergence is to ameliorate the exacerbated mind
The tree on which the establishment rest
Though uneasy lies the head that wears the crown
Yet, a good wine needs no bush
On this noble seat you are, the seat of the eminents
With this sharp cutlass in your palm
You use it to make path for this place
A heavy cutlass that cowards can not carry
they dare not use one
Because they are unfit
Unhappy is the land that needs a hero
But, this land is happy, we have you, our hero
So, shall in our bottomless happiness shall we
Not regret having you, our hero
Do not be a borrower or a lender
Because a lone often loses itself and friendliness
Give few thy voice and many thy ear
because all place is like Jerusalem
where we have good and bad people
The birth of our saviour and
The home of the yeatsian beast
poet: Ipaye olawole peter
poem by Ipaye Olawole Peter
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Black Kate
KATE, they say, is seventeen—
Do not count her sweet, you know.
Arms of her are rather lean—
Ditto, calves and feet, you know.
Features of Hellenic type
Are not patent here, you see.
Katie loves a black clay pipe—
Doesn’t hate her beer, you see.
Spartan Helen used to wear
Tresses in a plait, perhaps:
Kate has ochre in her hair—
Nose is rather flat, perhaps.
Rose Lorraine’s surpassing dress
Glitters at the ball, you see:
Daughter of the wilderness
Has no dress at all, you see.
Laura’s lovers every day
In sweet verse embody her:
Katie’s have a different way,
Being frank, they “waddy” her.
Amy by her suitor kissed,
Every nightfall looks for him:
Kitty’s sweetheart isn’t missed—
Kitty “humps” and cooks for him.
Smith, and Brown, and Jenkins, bring
Roses to the fair, you know.
Darkies at their Katie fling
Hunks of native bear, you know.
English girls examine well
All the food they take, you twig:
Kate is hardly keen of smell—
Kate will eat a snake, you twig.
Yonder lady’s sitting room—
Clean and cool and dark it is:
Kitty’s chamber needs no broom—
Just a sheet of bark it is.
You may find a pipe or two
If you poke and grope about:
Not a bit of starch or blue—
Not a sign of soap about.
Girl I know reads Lalla Rookh—
Poem of the “heady” sort:
Kate is better as a cook
Of the rough and ready sort.
Byron’s verse on Waterloo,
Makes my darling glad, you see:
Kate prefers a kangaroo—
Which is very sad, you see.
Other ladies wear a hat
Fit to write a sonnet on:
Kitty has—the naughty cat—
Neither hat nor bonnet on!
Fifty silks has Madame Tate—
She who loves to spank it on:
All her clothes are worn by Kate
When she has her blanket on.
Let her rip! the Phrygian boy
Bolted with a brighter one;
And the girl who ruined Troy
Was a rather whiter one.
Katie’s mouth is hardly Greek—
Hardly like a rose it is:
Katie’s nose is not antique—
Not the classic nose it is.
Dryad in the grand old day,
Though she walked the woods about,
Didn’t smoke a penny clay—
Didn’t “hump” her goods about.
Daphne by the fairy lake,
Far away from din and all,
Never ate a yard of snake,
Head and tail and skin and all.
poem by Henry Kendall
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Am I a Poet?
Dunno about you (that’s why
I’m writing this poem) but
it’s the noun thing, ‘poet’: as if
you’re simultaneously committing yourself
for life to something – although
you would love to do it for life,
it’s somehow got
public connotations.
A good place to test the word
is a party – if you make some pleasantry
and the lady’s eyes brighten and she says
‘That’s very poetic..’ you’d be mad
not to continue the conversation…
So ‘poetic’ is OK, . It’s
non-theatening,
environmentally friendly,
warm-hearted;
however ‘I write poetry’ –
is risky. Men feel challenged;
they know they wouldn’t read your book
even if you gave it to them, signed; so
they respond in career-advice mode
with ‘and do you make any money
by it? ’ or even a straight
‘are you any good? ’ or
simply assume you’re out of work
and unemployable; whatever,
they’ll do that English thing
of looking carefully at your clothes..
and go into their practiced
about-to-move-away mode
Women however are different: especially
if you risk the full-on ‘I’m a poet…’
they’ll do an instant calculation –
he’s discreetly promiscuous, that means
safe, so do I fancy him? Probably out of work, but hey
that’s always useful in an afternoon lover…
However for them, at a party
it promises a more interesting conversation
than ‘I’m a merchant banker, not
very interesting I’m afraid ha ha’
so at least they ask questions
and you may well bring them around
though ladies in rather look-at-me attire
who instantly respond ‘Yes,
so am I! ! ’ with enthusiasm are to be very carefully
summed up before you risk this claim
of poet; it can be like
being smothered by
an emotional jellyfish;
better just say ‘I write poetry’,
it’s less committing; you can always
retreat from the claim as if
it was a passing phase when younger
but if the lady, or the gentleman,
replies with a twinkle in their eye,
Yes, so do I, but
I don’t tell anyone …! ’ a merry
conversation should ensue…
I’m currently using ‘I write poetry
on the internet…’ which is
non-threatening, almost interesting,
and doesn’t involve
any commitment on their part
to buy your book or anything
My recommendation is,
try these phrases out at home,
with a mirror, preferably full-length
(body-language can be so revealing)
and see which makes you cringe
or even fills you with inspiring confident pride
However all this may be
a generation thing; ‘lyric-writers’ for popnrock
must have all this sussed,
beating off the offers
of one sort or another.
He said.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Market Square Heroes
(derek dick, mark kelly, steve rothery, peter trewavas, michael pointer, brian jellyman, diz minnett)
I found smog at the end of my rainbow
I found my thoughts shift slowly into phase
Declared the constitution of the walkway
I realise its time to plan the day, the day
Im a market square hero gathering the storms to troop
Cause Im a market square hero speeding the beat of the streetpulse
Are you following me, are you following me?
Well suffer my pretty warriors and follow me
I got a golden handshake that nearly broke my arm
I left the ranks of shuffling graveyard people
I got rust upon my hands from the padlocked factory gates
Silent chimneys provide the silent steeples
Cause Im a market square hero gathering the storms to troop
Cause Im a market square hero speeding the beat of the streetpulse, the streetpulse
Are you following me? are you following me?
Well suffer my pretty children and follow me, follow me
Change, change, change!
Change, change, change!
I am your antichrist show me allegiance
Are you following me
I am your antichrist pledge to me defiance
Are you following me
Suffer my pretty warriors
Suffer my fallen child
Are you following me
The time has come to conquer and Ill provide your end
Suffer!
We march!
I give peace signs when I wage war in the disco
Im the warrior in the ultra violet haze
Armed with antisocial insecurity
I plan the path of destiny from this maze
Cause Im a market square hero gathering the storms to troop
Cause Im a market square hero speeding the beat of the streetpulse, the streetpulse
Are you following me? are you following me?
Well suffer my fallen angels and follow me
Im the market square hero
Im the market square hero
Were market square heroes
Were the market square heroes
Are you following me?
Im the market square hero!
song performed by by Marillion
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Whose Fault?
Drilling the bark happily singing too.
Cutting the trunk happily singing too.
Bark to bark the wood-pecker goes.
Next and next the cutting he does.
Happy bird turns into a crying struggler
Victorious cutter is still happier
The deprived bird and the slain trees
Throw a curse over the man for no life.
There happens a turn of drought
On the land forests being totally without.
No rain and life becomes lifeless.
Man preys on even beasts
Beastlike himself indeed, the wild
Cuts down his own race - be it old or child
Mother or other brutally killed and preyed
The land wounded with ichor oozing
Putrid stink everywhere nauseating
Soil becoming rusted with blood
Mother Earth to burst now of whose fault?
poem by Indira Renganathan
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The Nobleman's Wedding
I once was a guest at a Nobleman's wedding;
Fair was the Bride, but she scarce had been kind,
And now in our mirth, she had tears nigh the shedding
Her former true lover still runs in her mind.
Attired like a minstrel, her former true lover
Takes up his harp, and runs over the strings;
And there among strangers, his grief to discover,
A fair maiden's falsehood he bitterly sings.
'Now here is the token of gold that was broken;
Seven long years it was kept for your sake;
You gave it to me as a true lover's token;
No longer I'll wear it, asleep or awake.'
She sat in her place by the head of the table,
The words of his ditty she mark'd them right well:
To sit any longer this bride was not able,
So down at the bridegroom's feet she fell.
'O one, one request, my lord, one and no other,
O this one request will you grant it to me?
To lie for this night in the arms of my mother,
And ever, and ever thereafter with thee.'
Her one, one request it was granted her fairly;
Pale were her cheeks as she went up to bed;
And the very next morning, early, early,
They rose and they found this young bride was dead.
The bridegroom ran quickly, he held her, he kiss'd her,
He spoke loud and low, and listen'd full fain;
He call'd on her waiting-maids round to assist her
But nothing could bring the lost breath back again.
O carry her softly! the grave is made ready;
At head and at foot plant a laurel-bush green;
For she was a young and a sweet noble lady,
The fairest young bride that I ever have seen.
poem by William Allingham
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To A Lady, With Falconer's 'Shipwreck
Oh! not by Cam or Isis, famous streams
In arched groves, the youthful poet's choice;
Nor while half-listening, mid delicious dreams,
To harp and song from lady's hand and voice;
Nor yet while gazing in sublimer mood
On cliff, or cataract, in Alpine dell;
Nor in dim cave with bladdery sea-weed strewed,
Framing wild fancies to the ocean's swell;
Our sea-bard sang this song! which still he sings,
And sings for thee, sweet friend! Hark, Pity, hark
Now mounts, now totters on the tempest's wings,
Now groans, and shivers, the replunging bark!
'Cling to the shrouds!' In vain! The breakers roar--
Death shrieks! With two alone of all his clan
Forlorn the poet paced the Grecian shore,
No classic roamer, but a ship-wrecked man!
Say then, what muse inspired these genial strains
And lit his spirit to so bright a flame?
The elevating thought of suffered pains,
Which gentle hearts shall mourn; but chief, the name
Of gratitude! remembrance of friend,
Or absent or no more! shades of the Past,
Which Loves make substance! Hence to thee I send,
O dear as long as life and memory last!
I send with deep regards of heart and head,
Sweet maid, for friendship formed! this work to thee
And thou, the while thou canst not choose but shed
A tear for Falconer, wilt remember me.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Everything Is Kiling Me....
As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
poem by Adnan Zahedi
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The Three Foot Rule
When I was bound apprentice, and learned to use my hands,
Folk never talked of measures that came from foreign lands:
Now I'm a British Workman, too old to go to school;
So whether the chisel or file I hold, I'll stick to my three-foot rule.
Some talk of millimetres, and some of kilogrammes,
And some of decilitres, to measure beer and drams;
But I'm a British Workman, too old to go to school,
So by pounds I'll eat, and by quarts I'll drink, and I'll work by my three-foot rule.
A party of astronomers went measuring the earth,
And forty million metres they took to be its girth;
Five hundred million inches, though, go through from pole to pole;
So let's stick to inches, feet and yards, and the good old three-foot rule.
poem by William John Macquorn Rankine
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Working Class Hero
As soon as you're born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all.
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,
Till you're so f***ing crazy you can't follow their rules.
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can't really function you're so full of fear.
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you're so clever and classless and free,
But you're still f***ing peasants as far as I can see.
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
There's room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill.
A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.
If you want to be a hero well just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.
song, music by John Lennon, lyrics by John Lennon from John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (11 December 1970)
Submitted by anonym
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Billy Vickers
No song is this of leaf and bird,
And gracious waters flowing;
I'm sick at heart, for I have heard
Big Billy Vickers "blowing".
He'd never take a leading place
In chambers legislative:
This booby with the vacant face --
This hoddy-doddy native!
Indeed, I'm forced to say aside,
To you, O reader, solely,
He only wants the horns and hide
To be a bullock wholly.
But, like all noodles, he is vain;
And when his tongue is wagging,
I feel inclined to copy Cain,
And "drop" him for his bragging.
He, being Bush-bred, stands, of course,
Six feet his dirty socks in;
His lingo is confined to horse
And plough, and pig and oxen.
Two years ago he'd less to say
Within his little circuit;
But now he has, besides a dray,
A team of twelve to work it.
No wonder is it that he feels
Inclined to clack and rattle
About his bullocks and his wheels --
He owns a dozen cattle.
In short, to be exact and blunt,
In his own estimation
He's "out and out" the head and front
Top-sawyer of creation!
For, mark me, he can "sit a buck"
For hours and hours together;
And never horse has had the luck
To pitch him from the leather.
If ever he should have a "spill"
Upon the grass or gravel,
Be sure of this, the saddle will
With Billy Vickers travel.
At punching oxen you may guess
There's nothing out can "camp" him:
He has, in fact, the slouch and dress
Which bullock-driver stamp him.
I do not mean to give offence,
But I have vainly striven
To ferret out the difference
'Twixt driver and the driven.
Of course, the statements herein made
In every other stanza
Are Billy's own; and I'm afraid
They're stark extravaganza.
I feel constrained to treat as trash
His noisy fiddle-faddle
About his doings with the lash,
His feats upon the saddle.
But grant he "knows his way about",
Or grant that he is silly,
There cannot be the slightest doubt
Of Billy's faith in Billy.
Of all the doings of the day
His ignorance is utter;
But he can quote the price of hay,
The current rate of butter.
His notions of our leading men
Are mixed and misty very:
He knows a cochin-china hen --
He never speaks of Berry.
As you'll assume, he hasn't heard
Of Madame Patti's singing;
But I will stake my solemn word
He knows what maize is bringing.
Surrounded by majestic peaks,
By lordly mountain ranges,
Where highest voice of thunder speaks
His aspect never changes.
The grand Pacific there beyond
His dirty hut is glowing:
He only sees a big salt pond,
O'er which his grain is going.
The sea that covers half the sphere,
With all its stately speeches,
Is held by Bill to be a mere
Broad highway for his peaches.
Through Nature's splendid temples he
Plods, under mountains hoary;
But he has not the eyes to see
Their grandeur and their glory.
A bullock in a biped's boot,
I iterate, is Billy!
He crushes with a careless foot
The touching water-lily.
I've said enough -- I'll let him go!
If he could read these verses,
He'd pepper me for hours, I know,
With his peculiar curses.
But this is sure, he'll never change
His manners loud and flashy,
Nor learn with neatness to arrange
His clothing, cheap and trashy.
Like other louts, he'll jog along,
And swig at shanty liquors,
And chew and spit. Here ends the song
Of Mr. Billy Vickers.
poem by Henry Kendall
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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City People Blues
It was one wild ride
A matter of fact
A hell of a party
To be exact.
Lots of kickass people
Each had a guitar
Outplaying each other
You know how they are.
And some hot shot singers
By ones and by twos
Belting out bodacious
City people blues.
And nobody asked me
Where did I work.
Nobody tried to make me
Feel like a jerk
Because I was wearing
The same dirty jeans.
I was just part of the party
If you know what I mean.
We rocked and we rolled
From sunset to dawn
Singing every song we knew
The party rolled on.
It would last all night
While the jug wine lasted.
It was amazing that they
Could play well when blasted.
The music would swing
From country to metal
Depending on who had
His foot on the pedal
While the party careened
From chat to a dance
And everything a matter
Of pure happenstance.
And nobody asked me
Where did I work.
Nobody tried to make me
Feel like a jerk
Because I was wearing
The same dirty jeans.
I was just part of the party
If you know what I mean.
We rocked and we rolled
From sunset to dawn
Singing every song we knew
The party rolled on.
Nobody ever planned
A single stinking thing.
We'd just all sorta gather
And pick and grin and sing.
We'd keep the neighbors up
And invite them all in.
To share a hit of doobie
And drink some of our gin.
We passed around popcorn
And maybe some cooking.
And some Alice B brownies
When nobody was looking.
And nobody asked me
Where did I work.
Nobody tried to make me
Feel like a jerk
Because I was wearing
The same dirty jeans.
I was just part of the party
If you know what I mean.
We rocked and we rolled
From sunset to dawn
Singing every song we knew
The party rolled on.
poem by Brent Kincaid
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Party All Night
Hang loose
Party
Got my head to the grindstone
I'm trying to act like a fool
My head is a lampshade
They can't find me at school
Well I'm an animal
Yes I'm a cannonball
They say I'm out for blood
One thing I wanna do is
Party all night (Oh-oh!)
Party all night (Oh-oh-oh!)
Party all night (Yeah!)
All night long
Driving right way on the wrong side
A bit too much to drink
Women in the backseat
And they don't know what to think
They say I've lost my head
You'll probably end up dead
But they're too blind to see
What's a party to me, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Is to party all night (Oh-oh!)
Let's party all night (Oh-oh-oh!)
Party all night (Yeah!)
All night long
Uh!
Let's have a good time, good time
C'mon
Everybody's parties
I'm on a one way cruise
Lookin' for trouble
We got nothing to lose
They're on the telephone
They're trying to send me home
We're gonna pull the plug
We've got a new kind of school
Let's party all night
Let's party all night
Party all night
Let's party all night
(Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah)
Let's party all night (Oh!)
(We're party animals, baby)
Let's party all night (Oh-oh-oh!)
(We've got nothing to lose)
Let's party all night
All night long, yeah!
Let's party all night
Let's party boys
song performed by by Quiet Riot
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Pink Thing
Anytime you rise, Im here,
And Im crazy for you pink thing.
You make me want to laugh,
You make me want to cry,
When I stroke your head I feel a hundred heartbeats high,
Pink thing.
I want to take you out and show you round the world,
Pink thing itll be ok.
If I could only wake you from your slumber curled,
Pink thing what would straight folks say?
That man isnt fit to enter heaven.
That man is a sinner,
Ever burning in disgrace.
Pink thing, spit in my face,
Id love you for it.
Anytime you call, Ill fall,
Into madness for you pink thing.
You make me want to live.
You make me want to die.
And when I stroke your head I feel a hundred heartbeats high,
Pink thing.
I want to take you out and show you to the girls,
Pink thing theyre a whole new tribe.
If you could only see the way the way the gingham swirls,
Pink thing its a whole new vibe.
That man isnt fit to be a father.
That man is a sinner,
fore they cast me down to die,
Pink thing, spit in my eye,
Id love you for it.
Yes, Id love you for it.
Anytime you rise, Im here,
And Im crazy for you pink thing.
You make me want to laugh,
You make me want to cry,
When I stroke your head I feel a hundred heartbeats high,
Pink thing.
Hundred heartbeats high,
Pink thing.
Hundred heartbeats high.
I want to introduce you,
Take you to the brink thing.
I want to introduce you,
Tell me what you think thing. I want to introduce you,
Make that missing link thing.
Dont you think its time you met some female pink thing?
You make me want to laugh,
You make me want to cry,
So why is it Im happy when theres tears down in your eye?
Little pink thing.
song performed by by Xtc
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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She Sells
(ferry/jobson)
Now youre talking in headlines
Up to the minute and free
Stop press, hold the front page
Up as a mirror
Are you reading me?
Watch you walking in waltz time
A jigsaw puzzle in tune
Or are you faking a straight line
To suit yourself too soon
Rather nouveau than never
Contemporary ideal
Some natural kind of poet might slow it
But she sells more my speed
She sells country and modern
Ancient western song
Of oriental confusion
You so right, me so wrong
Now youre fixing to fly me-
Auto-erotic, please,
On the break that youre gliding.
Your lingeries a gift-wrap
Slip it to me
Nine till five
The daily grind
Made-up lies
Make up my mind
Same machine consuming you
Consuming you
Oh why
She sells
I need
Oh why love why
She sells
I need.
song performed by by Roxy Music
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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