Cairo Jag
Shall I get drunk or cut myself a piece of cake,
a pasty Syrian with a few words of English
or the Turk who says she is a princess--she dances
apparently by levitation? Or Marcelle, Parisienne
always preoccupied with her dull dead lover:
she has all the photographs and his letters
tied in a bundle and stamped Decede in mauve ink.
All this takes place in a stink of jasmin.
But there are the streets dedicated to sleep
stenches and the sour smells, the sour cries
do not disturb their application to slumber
all day, scattered on the pavement like rags
afflicted with fatalism and hashish. The women
offering their children brown-paper breasts
dry and twisted, elongated like the skull,
Holbein's signature. But his stained white town
is something in accordance with mundane conventions-
Marcelle drops her Gallic airs and tragedy
suddenly shrieks in Arabic about the fare
with the cabman, links herself so
with the somnambulists and legless beggars:
it is all one, all as you have heard.
But by a day's travelling you reach a new world
the vegetation is of iron
dead tanks, gun barrels split like celery
the metal brambles have no flowers or berries
and there are all sorts of manure, you can imagine
the dead themselves, their boots, clothes and possessions
clinging to the ground, a man with no head
has a packet of chocolate and a souvenir of Tripoli.
poem by Keith Douglas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Everybody Dance (The Dance Of The Dead)
As the sun sinks upon the horizon,
As the dark night creeps in,
The dead dance.
On the streets they roam,
Silent,
Alone.
Everybody dances,
The saints and the sinners,
Everybody dances,
To the sound of the rhythm,
Everybody dances,
The dance of the dead.
The dance of the dead goes on,
And on,
Never stops,
Never slows,
Time does not matter to the dead.
Everybody dances,
The poor and the rich,
Everybody dances,
To the cries to the babies,
Everybody dances,
The dance of the dead.
As your time goes up,
The dead dance into your room,
Filled with silent movements,
They twirl with grace,
And style
And ease.
They reach out their hands,
And you take it,
And join the dance of the dead.
Everybody dance,
The young and the old,
Everybody dance,
The music is playing,
Everybody dance,
To the dance of the dead.
C’mon,
Everybody dance,
Soldiers and lovers,
Oh,
Everybody dance,
To sound they cry,
So,
Everybody dance,
To the dance of the dead,
The dance of the dead.
Oh,
Everybody dances,
Because the dance never stops.
6/05/06
poem by Charlie F. Kane
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Rags & Old Iron
Norman curtis, oscar brown jr
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
I heard that old rag man now making his rounds
He came right to my alley lord with sorrowful sounds
Crying rags old iron and pulling his cart
Ask him how much hed give me for my broken heart
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
So I asked that old rag man how much he would pay
For a heart that was broken baby when you went away
For a burnt out old love light that no longer beams
And a couple of slightly used second hand dreams
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
For those big empty promises you used to make
For those memories of you that are no longer sweet
I wish he could haul them off down the street
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
When love doesnt last tell me what is it worth
It was once mamas most precious possession on earth
When I asked that old rag man if hed like to buy
He just shook his head and continued to cry
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
Rags old iron rags old iron
Rags old iron rags old iron rags old iron
song performed by by Nina Simone
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
an unhappy childhood of this man who names himself 'I'.....
i've seen this picture of you
on that far corner of the world
land of snow and you are inside that very thick
winter clothes
there is that smile in your face
and i am taking a closer look
it is sour.
i know what sour is. I've been one for forty years
wearing that
sour smile, and i have many reasons why a smile must be sour
for forty years
the reasons are sour
very sour
beyond those tastes of a hundred green lemons
or a green mango with some disturbing gums on its mouth
i burned all my pictures in college
except those when i was yet a boy beside my mama and our white dog
i was in grade one and i did not like school and mama forced me into it
i was selling chocolates and i ate them all and mama was mad at me and beat me with a stick
papa did not like me reading books as he does not know how to read
i climb trees and hide on the leaves and read stories
in our dialect and draw some pictures of women without their dresses on
you see i still have this picture of myself riding a carabao and hauling some wood and coconut palms
i take a close look of my own smile, It is very sour
and it tastes like yours, but perhaps mine is the worst
but i am happy now, i know how to suppress sour smiles, i know how to manage and project myself
i smile like a cow now, and laugh like a horse
because all of them are dead.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Lafayette Blues
1,2,3,4]
[yeah]
Marantette,
Leverette,
Lannette,
Lafayette,
Livernois,
Labrosse,
Louis,
Metatal,
Rochelle,
Marcelle,
Riopelle,
Manistique,
and Armour,
[?]
ohh, ohh, hmmm
hey
Mercier,
Le May,
Tournier,
Salliote,
and Le Roy,
[?]
Montlieu,
Cadieux,
Neveaux Avenue En Detroit,
[?]
well i'm ready teddy
i'm ready, ready teddy
to rock n roll
go
ahh
Lamphere,
Belle Terre,
Marcelle,
Metetal,
Rouge,
Le BlancThe White Stripes Lyrics Index
song performed by by White Stripes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Dead In The Wombs
those same children
who died in the waters
that swallowed Atlantis....
those same children,
starving 'neath Africa's sun....
dead from the bombings
in Iraq, Afghanistan, and soon Iran....
their bodies thrown into dumpsters
here in the United States....
dead on the borders,
dead in the oil filled waters,
dead on the cocaine streets,
dead in the prisons...
dead in the colleges,
dead in the unemployment lines....
dead on the picket lines,
dead, handcuffed, and beaten....
dying, and dead, world crazy spinning...
as the 'light of the world'
sputters, and goes out....
dead in the wombs of the
homeless, hopeless, and forgotten...
dead by our hands!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
In Memoriam Paul Celan
Lay these words into the dead man's grave
next to the almonds and black cherries---
tiny skulls and flowering blood-drops, eyes,
and Thou, O bitterness that pillows his head.
Lay these words on the dead man's eyelids
like eyebrights, like medieval trumpet flowers
that will flourish, this time, in the shade.
Let the beheaded tulips glisten with rain.
Lay these words on his drowned eyelids
like coins or stars, ancillary eyes.
Canopy the swollen sky with sunspots
while thunder addresses the ground.
Syllable by syllable, clawed and handled,
the words have united in grief.
It is the ghostly hour of lamentation,
the void's turn, mournful and absolute.
Lay these words on the dead man's lips
like burning tongs, a tongue of flame.
A scouring eagle wheels and shrieks.
Let God pray to us for this man.
poem by Edward Hirsch
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
All Dead, All Dead
Memories, my memories
How long can you stay
To haunt my days
She came without a farthing
A babe without a name
So much ado about nothing
Is what shed try to say
So much ado my lover
So many games we played
Through every fleeted summer
Through every precious day
All dead all dead
All the dreams we had
And I wonder why I still live on
All dead all dead
And alone Im spared
My sweeter half instead
All dead
And gone
All dead...
All dead all dead
At the rainbows end
And still I hear her own sweet song
All dead all dead
Take me back again
You know my little friends
All dead
And gone
All dead and gone
Her ways are always with me
I wander all the while
But please you must forgive me
I am old but still a child
All dead all dead
But I should not grieve
In time it comes to everyone
All dead all dead
But in hope I breathe
Of course I dont believe
Youre dead
And gone
All dead
And gone
song performed by by Queen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Memorial Day For The War Dead
Memorial day for the war dead. Add now
the grief of all your losses to their grief,
even of a woman that has left you. Mix
sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history,
which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning
on one day for easy, convenient memory.
Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread,
in sweet milk for the terrible toothless God.
"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding."
No use to weep inside and to scream outside.
Behind all this perhaps some great happiness is hiding.
Memorial day. Bitter salt is dressed up
as a little girl with flowers.
The streets are cordoned off with ropes,
for the marching together of the living and the dead.
Children with a grief not their own march slowly,
like stepping over broken glass.
The flautist's mouth will stay like that for many days.
A dead soldier swims above little heads
with the swimming movements of the dead,
with the ancient error the dead have
about the place of the living water.
A flag loses contact with reality and flies off.
A shopwindow is decorated with
dresses of beautiful women, in blue and white.
And everything in three languages:
Hebrew, Arabic, and Death.
A great and royal animal is dying
all through the night under the jasmine
tree with a constant stare at the world.
A man whose son died in the war walks in the street
like a woman with a dead embryo in her womb.
"Behind all this some great happiness is hiding."
poem by Yehuda Amichai
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Ballade Of Queen Anne
The modish Airs,
The Tansey Brew,
The SWAINS and FAIRS
In curtained Pew;
Nymphs KNELLER drew,
Books BENTLEY read, -
Who knows them, who?
QUEEN ANNE is dead!
We buy her Chairs,
Her China blue,
Her red-brick Squares
We build anew;
But ah! we rue,
When all is said,
The tale o'er-true,
QUEEN ANNE is dead!
Now BULLS and BEARS,
A ruffling Crew,
With Stocks and Shares,
With Turk and Jew,
Go bubbling through
The Town ill-bred:
The World's askew,
QUEEN ANNE is dead!
ENVOY.
Friend, praise the new;
The old is fled:
Vivat FROU-FROU!
QUEEN ANNE is dead!
poem by Andrew Lang
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
When Women Will Rule The World
When women will rule the World sadly i won't be around
My bones will be resting forever in some quiet dead person's ground
But what a World 'twill be to live in the flower of peace will bloom again
And for as long as women do rule the World peace in the World will remain,
For as long as men rule the World terror and warring will live on
They have not learned from the mistakes of past male leaders with men as leaders all hope of peace gone
When women will rule the World the World will be a better place to live in
Mothers will not have to weep for their dead children there will not be wars for to win,
Women give birth to the soldiers mothers do not want their children to die
A dead hero is better than a living coward that is if you believe a lie,
Women do not want their children fighting in wars far away
There would be less wars in the World if women had a greater say
And when women will rule the World war will be a thing of the past
The flower of peace will be blooming and beautiful peace it will last.
poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Chocolate Is A Food Group
I love chocolate.
So should you.
Milk chocolate,
Dark chocolate.
It's good for you, too.
Chocolate cake,
Chocolate candy,
Chocolate pie.
Take away my chocolate
And I might die.
White chocolate,
Hot chocolate,
Even chocolate soup...
Any chocolate lover knows
Chocolate is a food group.
poem by Rich Reitz
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Mad Girl's Love Song
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade.
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
poem by Sylvia Plath (1951)
Submitted by anonym
Vote! | Copy!
Water Tender
The river
has not entered the house yet.
I pack framed photographs:
weddings, babies,
dead uncles, and grandparents,
set aside ceramic eggs,
balanced on wooden stands,
to reach the wedding cake couple,
equidistant between two photographs.
My mother,
in her borrowed wedding dress,
holding a bouquet of artificial flowers,
whiter than Aunt Rose Mary's silk skirt.
My father,
in his Navy uniform, bearing
the insignia of a Water Tender,
his cap worn tilted to the right.
Standing midpoint,
the wedding cake couple
represents their union.
Flesh colored paint overlaps
the neckline of the bride,
executed too quickly.
The groom's black top-hat
is worn, a wedding ring shape
encircles the edge of the crown.
My mother is dead,
my father has remarried. He's left
behind the photographs, the eggs,
the wedding cake couple.
The river enters an open door.
I salvage what I can.
poem by Mary Agnes Dalrymple
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Dead Or Alive
There in the shadows, looks like a hand
Without its owner, to give it a command
Its got a purpose but I dont know what it is
Im in trouble
There in the streets, looks like a man
But something wrong that I dont understand
His eyes are open but he dont see a thing
His skin is peeling off, his bones are sticking out
Im getting scared
Oh my God (is it dead? )
Is it living? (is it dead? )
Is it dead or alive?
(is it dead? ), is it dead? (is it dead? )
Is it dead? (is it dead? )
Is it dead or alive?
Hiding in the cupboards, like little mice
Hiding in the frigerator, that isnt nice
Its not an animal, it dont have legs
No one else can see it
It moves so fast, corner of my eye
Look again its gone, its hiding
Wont somebody help me, doesnt anybody care?
It waits so patiently, for me to lose my guard
Im getting scared
Is it dead, is it
(is it dead)
Is it dead
(is it dead)
Is it dead or alive
(is it dead)
Is it dead
(is it dead)
Is it dead, is it
I remember there was a time
When dead and buried meant just that
Underneath the cold dark ground
Things stay put!
Oh them bones they make them bodies walk
Them bones, them bones
If they could only talk!
Is it dead (fade)
song performed by by Oingo Boingo
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Overload Sugar Rush
Candy coated apples
Chocolate ice cream with just a bit of sprinkles
Tangy mike and Ike
Skittle flavored milkshakes with cherries on top
Gingerbread cookies with a strike of milk
Watery lemonade
Cupcakes of wonder
Twisted vines of vanilla extract
Banana cream pie with whip cream on top
Just the perfect life full of innocence
Sour patches running through the veins of angel cake
Dry gumdrops running the chocolate wafers
A Fein for the extra sugar planted down the roots which she dare not goes
The black roses that stood from the berry rush
Just a strawberry ruining the veins of innocence
The black licorice is was just so irresistible wanting to try it
But too afraid for it gives you addiction to the darkness
The rotten sweetness of a teenage girl
A strawberry to a blackberry
Consideration and a fan of sweet suicide
Vitamin pills that scream “eat me I’m death! ! ! ”
Tempting to do it, she asks for a peck of beauty to awaken
No savior from the ugliness of the sour patches
She cries watery fruit punch that gives diabetes
She shall never have candy coated apples again they all say
But she smiles hours later because she realizes
She isn’t the only one who lost her sweetness
Because she looks at me as a role model
Because I myself have sour patches too
And we all who have lost our sweetness to the evil sour patches
Shall stand together holding hands fighting it as one
We will shoot those sour patches with fireballs of sweetness
And we shall laugh as they fall
Don’t shed a tear girl
Because we are sour patches hoping to become sweet again
And candy coated apples we shall be someday! ! ! ! ! !
poem by Marie Jones
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
West End Girls
(....forever)
Sometimes youre better off dead
Theres gun in your hand and its pointing at your head
You think youre mad, too unstable
Kicking in chairs and knocking down tables
In a restaurant in a west end town
Call the police, theres a madman around
Running down underground to a dive bar
In a west end town
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
West end girls
Too many shadows, whispering voices
Faces on posters, too many choices
If, when, why, what?
How much have you got?
Have you got it, do you get it, if so, how often?
And which do you choose, a hard or soft option?
(how much do you need? )
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
West end girls
West end girls
(how much do you need? )
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
Oooh west end town, a dead end world
East end boys, west end girls
West end girls
Youve got a heart of glass or a heart of stone
Just you wait till I get you home
Weve got no future, weve got no past
Here today, built to last
In every city, in every nation
From lake geneva to the finland station
(how far have you been? )
In a west end town, a dead end world
The east end boys and west end girls
A west end town, a dead end world
East end boys, west end girls
West end girls
West end girls
West end girls
(how far have you been? )
Girls
East end boys
And west end girls
And west end girls
And west end girls
East end boys
The west end girls
The west end boys
And west end girls
The west end girls
The west end boys
The west end girls
song performed by by Pet Shop Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Returning Home
In the smoke I smell
Dead animals,
Dead neighbors, friends, and family members.
In the mist I see
All those who were once alive.
Behind me
Our town stands
Burned down to ashes;
Only skeletons remain.
This war has taken away so much.
In the rubble on the streets
I see
The way things once were.
Happy homes
Filled with laughter
Children playing
Stickball in the street.
Now
So much has been taken
Away from me.
We find bodies
In the yards, in the wells,
In our fields and on the streets;
Dead animals,
Dead neighbors, friends, and family members.
The war is over
And we are back.
To bury the dead,
To give hope to the young,
To start again.
poem by Rabia Minhas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Firing-Line
They are creeping on through the cornfields yet, and they clamber amongst the rocks,
Ere they rush to stab with the bayonet and smash with the rifle-stocks.
And many are wounded, many are dead—some reel as if drunk with wine,
And fling them down on a blood-stained bed, and sleep in the firing-line.
And they dream, perhaps, of the days shut back, while the shrapnel shrieks and crashes,
And field-guns hammer and rifles crack, and the blood of a comrade splashes.
In horrible shambles they rest a while from murder by right divine;
They curse or jest, and they frown or smile—and they dream in the firing-line.
In the dreadful din of a ghastly fight they are shooting, murdering, men;
In the smothering silence of ghastly peace we murder with tongue and pen.
Where is heard the tap of the typewriter—where the track of reform they mine—
Where they stand to the frame or the linotype—we are all in the firingline.
Weary and parched in the world-old war we are fighting with quivering nerves;
The dead are our fathers who charged before, and the children are our reserves.
In the world-old war, with the world-old wrongs that shall last while the stars still shine,
My comrades and I, who would sing their songs, are all in the firing-line.
There are some of us cowards who hug the ground, and some of us reckless who jest;
And some of us careless who slumber sound, and some of us weary who rest.
There are some of us dreamers, whose beds seem soft, and O heart! O friend of mine!
The brightest and bravest of earth too oft lie drunk in the firing-line.
But the sleeper may wake ere the fort we storm, and the coward be first to dare,
And the weak grow strong, and the drunkard reform, and the dreamer strike hardest there.
God give me strength in my country’s need, though shame and disgrace be mine,
And death be certain, to rise and lead when we charge from the firing-line.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Cant Get It Out Of My Head
By elo, as performed by fountains of wayne
Midnight, on the water
I saw the oceans daughter
Walking on a wave she came
Staring as she called my name.
And I cant get it out of my head
No, I cant get it out of my head
Now my whole world is gone for dead
cos I cant get it out of my head.
Breakdown, on the shoreline
Cant move, its an ebb tide
Morning dont get here tonight
Searching for her silver light.
And I cant get it out of my head
No, I cant get it out of my head
Now my whole world is gone for dead
cos I cant get it out of my head, oh no
Day job, in the city
Robin hood & william tell & ivanhoe & lancelot
They dont envy me
Sitting as the sun goes down
In dreams the world keeps spinning round & around
And I cant get it out of my head
No, I cant get it out of my head
Now my whole world is gone for dead
cos I cant get it out of my head.
No, I cant get it out of my head
No, I cant get it out of my head
Now my whole world is gone for dead
cos I cant get it out of my head, oh no
song performed by by Fountains Of Wayne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
You Hung Me
It's dead, it'd dead you killed it all
you fucked me over, you watched me fall
the life you sucked right out of me
dead you hung me from tree.
My blood spills out onto the ground
it screams, it cries without a sound
there is no victory here for me
dead you hung me from a tree.
You can run but you can't hide
you'll try to say it's suicide
torn apart for all to see
dead you hung me from a tree.
I'll prove to you your world is wrong
your power has gone on way to long
watch my body swing so free
dead you hung me from a tree.
Free from you I find my peace
in a grave that's six feet deep
the cage unlocked, I found the key
dead you hung me from a tree.
poem by CJA Anderson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!