Once there came a man
Once there came a man
Who said,
"Range me all men of the world in rows."
And instantly
There was terrific clamour among the people
Against being ranged in rows.
There was a loud quarrel, world-wide.
It endured for ages;
And blood was shed
By those who would not stand in rows,
And by those who pined to stand in rows.
Eventually, the man went to death, weeping.
And those who staid in bloody scuffle
Knew not the great simplicity.
poem by Stephen Crane
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Tombstones!
rows and rows of tombstones,
glaring white in the morning sun...
with open graves before them,
and the smell of fresh turned earth.
cars speed by going nowhere;
people walking, as if lost....
the phone rings, no one answers,
the book, unread, stares from the shelf.
trees almost bare softly whisper,
dollar bills blown by the wind...
the old man sits by the station,
counting by number,
and not by name....
rows and rows of tombstones,
waiting for gifts unwrapped
by time!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
End Of The Game
There are times
when we stand on a stage
and there below the glare
of the footlights below
blinding our eyes
are rows and rows
of empty seats
where no one came to see
our farewell performance
to mark the end of the game.
15 January 2008
poem by David Harris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Serial killers are everywhere! Well, perhaps not in our neighborhood, but on our television screens, at the movie theatres, and in rows and rows of books at our local Borders or Barnes and Noble Booksellers.
Honesty
Thousands of thousands people
Among the thousands of rows
Waiting for the entry to the show
Of blitz, glamour and corruption.
The first rows are for the VIPs
The middle ones are for the sycophants
As I am neither of them
So my row is the last one.
Front line is for the hypocrites
Middle ones are for the touts
As I am neither of them
So my line is at the end.
I am feeling lonely
And my row is empty
Could you please for few minutes stand with me?
So that I can show you the real delight
Of life in the path of honesty..
poem by Abdul Wahab
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Poem about Poetry - His Poetry Collection
i found a poetry book on one of the tables in my office
i opened to read it from one poem to another
i discovered that the man never knew poetry
and wondered why he had to publish it
the words did not dance in my mind,
they all stood glued to the page
my heart did not go ga ga and my eyes
did not wish to jump from one line to the other
there were at least 10,000 words which lied
like rows and rows of quiet, never visited graves
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Magazines
you see them everywhere
you know those magazines
yeah I've bought a few
they show you everything
so many news stands
as I'm passing by
but rows and rows of you
are bound to catch my eye
now everyone can gaze upon your body
its good for you - I guess you have no shame
I never knew if how I acted
would make you seek revenge
and now I know
and you're in magazines
but is it really you
in the empty world
I shouldn't be surprised
you're an ambitious girl
with all that naked skin as sweet as honey
Maybe you just really needed money
I wondered if I would be punished for
my voyeuristic pleasure
and now I know
and you're in magazines
and now I know
and you're in magazines
now I know
I tear through pages
of every kind of pose
but its not really you I see
when I look real close
no you're a little bit different
you're a little bit different
you're a little bit different
and now I know
and you're in magazines
now I know
and you're in magazines
I'm alone
and you're in magazines
so it never was you
no
song performed by by Duncan Sheik from Daylight
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
In Long Rows
Millions and millions of crosses
standing in long rows.
Standing as a testament
of man’s inhumanity to man.
Their ages range low to high,
all casualties of a war
in which they answered
their counties call.
Their kin are long dead now,
but the crosses all bare a name
of someone who had they lived
might have gained fame
in another game.
However, here they lie
where the pretty flowers grow
after giving up their life
for their country.
Some are remembered
even to this day
for their acts of courage
others knew so well.
The others are just names
carved in memorials somewhere
as falling in a battle on a foreign soil.
All of them had a life
men, women and child alike.
A life they should have lived
and lived it to the full.
Now all they remain
is names on crosses
standing in long rows.
22 January 2008
This is for all those whose lives have been stolen in wars throughout the centuries.
poem by David Harris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Unemployment Shame
Rows and rows of boxes
All of them the same
With rooms and rooms of people
Each without a name
Hearts that beat, though breaking
And smiles that mask the pain
Of fading hopes of sunshine
Through windows drenched with rain.
Once lovers, now not speaking
Except to lay the blame
For broken dreams and the poverty
Of unemployment shame.
Empty cupboards and drunken sleep
Are all part of the game
But hungry babies wake them still
On mornings all the same.
poem by Jane Solanrobertson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Softly Then Sleep
Fluid drips angrily arm valid hot
rows death to banked shores on
beach needles pined body down
flowing pain Danube blew to blue.
poem by Is It Poetry
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The ABC
'Twas midnight in the schoolroom
And every desk was shut
When suddenly from the alphabet
Was heard a loud "Tut-Tut!"
Said A to B, "I don't like C;
His manners are a lack.
For all I ever see of C
Is a semi-circular back!"
"I disagree," said D to B,
"I've never found C so.
From where I stand he seems to be
An uncompleted O."
C was vexed, "I'm much perplexed,
You criticise my shape.
I'm made like that, to help spell Cat
And Cow and Cool and Cape."
"He's right" said E; said F, "Whoopee!"
Said G, "'Ip, 'Ip, 'ooray!"
"You're dropping me," roared H to G.
"Don't do it please I pray."
"Out of my way," LL said to K.
"I'll make poor I look ILL."
To stop this stunt J stood in front,
And presto! ILL was JILL.
"U know," said V, "that W
Is twice the age of me.
For as a Roman V is five
I'm half as young as he."
X and Y yawned sleepily,
"Look at the time!" they said.
"Let's all get off to beddy byes."
They did, then "Z-z-z."
poem by Spike Milligan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
We Walk In The Moonlight
We walk in the moonlight
to buy cake meal and cinnamon
past rows and rows of houses of which the lights wink
with the veldt stripped open into the distance
and you tell my about your childhood days,
about a house on a farm now demolished,
about an inheritance that was not yours
and the old yard may be up for sale.
Stars shine like torches against the sky,
your eyes gleam secretively
with the beauty of a innocent child,
our feelings are suddenly intense and intimate.
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Gruesome
Blood and gore
And bodies galore
Death is reaping
Children are weeping
Chaos, murder
People falling from the sky
And no one seems to care why
Arms legs head feet
All showing their signs of defeat
Why must they die?
This is a question
To never be answered
Hanging corpses
Are telling their stories
Upon the lynching ropes
There is not
A place without rot
Or even a simple blood spot
So leave
Be gone
Away from here
Before you feel
Death rows fear
poem by Sean Miller
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Church Street, Pretoria
Right down the street the traffic lights are green
and a couple of homeless men stand around a fire
in a half drum and ambulances and police cars scream
while they past rows and rows of flats for hire
and a couple of kids stand smoking at the stream
and this is reality, the heart of the city.
On the sidewalk pedestrians walk in crowds of men,
women and some children, some booted up to the knee
others with mini skirts short enough to condemn them
and my city stays lovely to me.
People queue for fried chicken, fish
and chips at shops and cafés and the smells fill my nose
and tomatoes and onions, lamb and steak are fried with a hiss
and in the traffic an angry speed-cop tries to retain his pose
when a minibus taxi almost runs him over, gives him a fright
at a flickering traffic light
and cars stream by into the coming night.
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
There’s a place with rows of cypress trees
There’s a place where rows of cypress trees
stand to attention
at the foot of a rocky hillock
and there are graves planted in rows.
As a child could have sworn
that there are ghosts among the graves,
when the wind went through the trees
and shadows move at night
over the graves.
We lived fifty meters away
in a old white house
and it was only
my dad, mom, brother and me.
If I were naughty
or did not want to eat my food
a man with a hat, raincoat and dark glasses
came in through the back door.
In the evenings my dad read poetry
to me and my younger brother
and his voice with the cannibal
and the rider of skimmelperd pan
resounds in me.
Untill a day that cancer
took my dad forever,
fifty meteres further.
[References: Die mensvreter and Die ruiter van skimmelperdpan by A.G. Visser.]
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The City
the city was once
a forest of trees
when the pioneers
arrive with their axes
and each tree fell
and the river swollen
mothers had to have
more children
and fathers had to
plow more fields
and plant the rows and
rows of corn
as monkeys on top
of the remaining trees
tease
the grasshoppers
find enough sleep
and the ants keep
on building their
empire on mounds
and mounds of
dry land
that was how
a city was formed
my father said
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
No Crystal Ball
A case study illustrates how this code works:
inser words ‘Yitzhak Rabin' so the computer
divides 304 805 letters into 64 rows of 4 772
letters each, the words in centre of matrix
This means skip code sequence is 4772, if skip
code is 10; 30 480 rows of 10 letters are made;
when rows are rearranged, new sets of inter-
locking words and phrases are created
Code words determine arrangement of text and
crossword puzzles change, phrase ‘assassin will
assassinate' touched Rabin's name - but only
after his death assassin's name AMIR was
found in the same place
The Bible is no crystal ball, you have to know
what to look for in advance - what a relief, no
future foretold, merely probabilities, nothing
determined - we shall always be free to
make up our own mind
Science speculates Bible might have been
encoded by non-human intelligence - and
Einstein relativity claims past and future is
one, time division an illusion, therefore
such a code could be created
Without breaking any rules governing our
universe, how gratifying to know the
range of possibilities ever so much
bigger than we suspected!
The Bible Code, Michael Drosnin, Weidenfeld &
Nicolson,1997 -
p.27-38
poem by Margaret Alice Second
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I walk next to the tomato beds
I walk next to the tomato beds
in our garden and here and there
are a few fig trees
which are covered with green swelling fruit
right against the main branches.
At the back in the corner and between the tomatoes
are rows of prickly pears
and look as if they have lost their thorns
but if you look carefully
the rows of thorns are still there.
You that I see as the flower
among my flowers
who are tender and soft hearted,
are now piercing the most
as the going away cuts through me
and staying apart, stays a terrible thing
but seeing each other again,
remains a wonderful
and yet every day
I see the fruit of you selfless love.
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Yesterday Went Too Soon
Sitting in today, watching traffic buzzing by, and faces closing in
A victim of regret, it glitters and it fades away, like silver turning grey
Washed it all away, waiting for this dream to end, before it sucks me in
Im climbing high, up above the streets and rows of neon lights
Im holding out my hand but Im alone
Wish I could show you
Wish you could see through my eyes
Tomorrow shines through
But Im missing yesterday
Crashing on the ground, the silence seems to suffocate, and bury me again
Waiting for a taste, of happiness to lift me free, and carry me away
Im climbing high, up above the streets and rows of neon lights
I know its just a dream but Im alive
Wish I could show you
Wish you could see through my eyes
Tomorrow shines through
But Im missing yesterday
Im still missing yesterday
Ill wait, Ill wait for you tonight.
Lost another week, feeling like a leper in, a world of vanity
Its killing me today, addiction pulls you down, you know
And shes the drug I need
Im climbing high, up above the streets and rows of neon lights
Im holding out my hand but Im alone
Wish I could show you
Wish you could see through my eyes
Tomorrow shines through
But Im missing yesterdayIm climbing high, up above the streets and rows of neon lightsIm holding out my hand but Im alone
Wish I could show you
Wish you could see through my eyes
Tomorrow shines through
But Im missing yesterday.
song performed by by Feeder
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
There was a land where lived no violets
There was a land where lived no violets.
A traveller at once demanded : "Why?"
The people told him:
"Once the violets of this place spoke thus:
'Until some woman freely gives her lover
To another woman
We will fight in bloody scuffle.'"
Sadly the people added:
"There are no violets here."
poem by Stephen Crane
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Lesson
Chaos ruled OK in the classroom
as bravely the teacher walked in
the nooligans ignored him
hid voice was lost in the din
"The theme for today is violence
and homework will be set
I'm going to teach you a lesson
one that you'll never forget"
He picked on a boy who was shouting
and throttled him then and there
then garrotted the girl behind him
(the one with grotty hair)
Then sword in hand he hacked his way
between the chattering rows
"First come, first severed" he declared
"fingers, feet or toes"
He threw the sword at a latecomer
it struck with deadly aim
then pulling out a shotgun
he continued with his game
The first blast cleared the backrow
(where those who skive hang out)
they collapsed like rubber dinghies
when the plug's pulled out
"Please may I leave the room sir?"
a trembling vandal enquired
"Of course you may" said teacher
put the gun to his temple and fired
The Head popped a head round the doorway
to see why a din was being made
nodded understandingly
then tossed in a grenade
And when the ammo was well spent
with blood on every chair
Silence shuffled forward
with its hands up in the air
The teacher surveyed the carnage
the dying and the dead
He waggled a finger severely
"Now let that be a lesson" he said
poem by Roger McGough
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!