Poetry, Prose, Lyricism, Arts Generally

[Citroënbender]

I'm trying to just be the "icebreaker".

It surprised me when the poet Les Murray recently died, there was no comment on it here. A bit more digging and I barely found any mention of stuff resembling the thread title. The reference in another thread to Pentridge Prison's makeover, made me think of Bruce Dawe's poem about the hanging of Ronald Ryan.

That's just two bits of vernacular Australiana, I admit this genre (including the visual arts) is a particular favourite.

Surely others here have favourite lyrics that stand without music, favourite artists, authors?

[JasonACT]

Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends.

Does that count?

[snap0964]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

It surprised me when the poet Les Murray recently died, there was no comment on it here.

You'd probably find most would be familiar with the soccer commentator of that name.

[Bushbasher]

You are an idiot,
You are a bitch,
I hate you all,
I'm going down the pub.


..A poem made up by a character during a conversation about poetry with his girlfriend and his mate in some obscure aussie movie from the 80s or 90s. I don't remember the name of the movie but that little gem stuck.

[LG17]

Originally Posted by Bushbasher

You are an idiot,
You are a bitch,
I hate you all,
I'm going down the pub.


..A poem made up by a character during a conversation about poetry with his girlfriend and his mate in some obscure aussie movie from the 80s or 90s. I don't remember the name of the movie but that little gem stuck.

Idiot Box was the movie.




For poetry and prose I can't go past Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson.
For modern days authors I like Matthew Reilly.

[Citroënbender]

JasonACT, thanks for bringing up wordplays. Is Rindercella on your favourites list?

[JasonACT]

I do recall hearing that in full once, but I'm sure it was in the 70's or early 80's.

How about this one.. Apparently written on a tombstone my grandparents saw once before [even] then:

Wherever you be, let your wind go free, because holding it in is what killed me!

(Apologies )

[roKWiz]

Two favourite Australian landscape artists are Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts.
Great collection in the NSW art gallery.

Favourite overall artist would be Turner.

I think that I shall never see a thing as lovely as a tree
It floats and flies on gossamer wings
and when it's tired it sits and sings

And from my partner who loves writing poems......
How is it that ants just appear
one minute they're not and the next they're here.

She even wrote a poem about me working onsite, called "The Stonemasons' hammer" as she listened to the clinking of the tools.

[JasonACT]

Keeping the thread alive...

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy.

(I know we're in the bar, not the pub, so more apologies )

[superyob]

Slash cut, boogie, strut, the mark of the beast...

Best line of poetry ever! By Marc Bolan...

[Peter B - CV8]

The boy stood on the burning deck, his pockets full of crackers
A spark fell down between his legs & blew off both his knackers !!

[Citroënbender]

Fair go Peter, we could fill the whole thread with “Burning Deck” variants.

Agree with SY that Bolan (or his ghostwriter, if there was one) had the knack for cherry-picking evocative words and phrases. Like sketch artists who have incredible economy of line but instil the whole mood of a picture.

Have long admired the clever use of tense in Pink Floyd’s Eclipse.

And all that is now
And all that is gone
And all that’s to come

[superyob]

Poe's 'The Raven' is one of my favorite poems of bleak, hopeless despair:

Once upon a midnight dreary,
While I pondered, weak and weary...

Do you know how long I have waited for a poetic thread to start CB? I almost started one here about 5 years ago but thought it would be a waste of time.

Since you have me cranked over now, a verse from 'The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner' when the ship is becalmed because someone shot the albatross:

Water, water everywhere
And all the boards did shrink.
Water, water everywhere,
And not a drop to drink...

You might say I love poetry. Don't hate me...

[superyob]

‘You rattle snake out with your tail feathers high,
jitterbug left and smile to the sky…’

'I Love To Boogie', Marc Bolan...

[Electrolyte Burns]

I love a sunburnt country.
A land of sweeping plains
Where big fat multinationals
Rape the land for financial gains.

Nimbin toilet wall in the late 80's

[Citroënbender]

A link, prompted by Peter B’s post:

https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/th...nish-it.209448

Aside from that, again lyrics. I was pulling apart The Living End’s All Torn Down in my head, it’s a favourite tune. For a bit of thrashy, angsty psychobilly it has solid underpinnings. A rhythm that’s a regimental march, just sped up a little. The words, again, economical; excepting repetition for choruses. The angry young man, alienated, spitting his grief out.

I see the city and it isn’t what it used to be
A million houses going up and down in front of me
No time to let the concrete set before it’s broken up again
Don’t care if it’s historic, don’t really care at all

[Citroënbender]

NSFW link (rude words): https://www.esquire.com/uk/life/a227...tish-swearing/

It’s an article from Esquire magazine about British people who think they’re making up really clever insults and are therefore literary giants. Typical of this publication and modern Vice, it’s edited down to be short and snappy. I do like the fact that - if you read it carefully - the author is also gently mocking himself and the readers. “As You Like It”

[Franco Cozzo]

My favorite poet was Zhang Zongchan from China, I'm quite fond of his 'Poem about Bastards'

“Poem About Bastards”
You tell me to do this
He tells me to do that
You are all bastards
Go **** your mother

http://thissiteisbestviewed.com/2018...ang-zongchang/

[Citroënbender]

A Chinese cousin of Harry Flashman?

[roddy1960]

There once was a bloke called Claude
with a Holden in his shed stored

Bastard would never ever start
needed just about every spare part

So he sold it and bought a Ford


Oops...sorry ..can only attempt limericks..and I do mean attempt.

[Loonar]

Been reading up on T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia fame).. and this quote from him :-

" All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity;

but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible."

[superyob]

I wrote the following lines about 13 years ago after a student in my class was killed in a car crash. Four days later, our principal had a heart attack and died...

Something wicked this way came
A snivelling wretch that bears no name
And stole away something genuinely good
Like a thief in the night, wearing a hood

It wasn’t as if that jackal had a use for those souls
They were just taken by its thieving trolls
Who did not ask if they could take
But just took them for stealing’s sake

To cause pain, to cause shock and spread misery
To leave us empty, flat and happy-free

[Loonar]

Hope the copyrighters don't get me on this, long admired Clive James and was especially taken with this, written in 2014, pretty sure he knew he had a death sentence by this stage..

Japanese Maple

Your death, near now, is of an easy sort.
So slow a fading out brings no real pain.
Breath growing short
Is just uncomfortable. You feel the drain
Of energy, but thought and sight remain:

Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever see
So much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls
On that small tree
And saturates your brick back garden walls,
So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls?

Ever more lavish as the dusk descends
This glistening illuminates the air.
It never ends.
Whenever the rain comes it will be there,
Beyond my time, but now I take my share.

My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new.
Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame.
What I must do
Is live to see that.That will end the game
For me, though life continues all the same:

Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,
A final flood of colors will live on
As my mind dies,
Burned by my vision of a world that shone
So brightly at the last, and then was gone.

© Clive James

[Loonar]

And a lighthearted one :-

Did you hear about the dyslexic, agnostic insomniac ?

He sat up all night wondering if there really is such a thing as a Dog..

[Citroënbender]

I would reckon Clive James to have been familiar with the poetry of Sylvia Plath. Gigolo springs to mind as a sort of reference to that you posted.

...And there is no end, no end of it.
I shall never grow old. New oysters
Shriek in the sea and I
Glitter like Fontainebleau

[Sprintey]

firstly, immature:

My mate Rick
Had a ten foot d*ick
He threwitoverthefencetoshowtheladynextdoor
She thought it was a snake
Hit it with a rake
Now it's only two foot four


For more serious poems, I could get into this,

A question: what's the deal with quoting whole poems here, can you do it if it has the (C) copyrighted sign?

[Citroënbender]

Whitely paintings on the upswing again:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-...chair/12925342

The story of how it’s first buyer came into it, is stuff of lore. No ICAC or Austrac then!

[BENT_8]

I put this together many moons ago now..

I still remember clearly, the day i got the call.
The one they liked to call the King, was to be no more.
They said he passed whilst on the edge, no other way he knew.
That day i lost a legend, yet i supported blue.

See Brocky he transcended camps, with charismatic cheek.
He turned his hand to any brand, versatile, so to speak.
Some times i wished to kick the screen, as title he did claim.
He beat the mighty Ford HO, if only for the rain.

But Brocky met his equal, one fateful day near Perth.
There was no way his ego and himself could share that turf.
See Brocky came unstuck that day, on unfamiliar dirt.
His place was on the black stuff, where peril he could flirt.

All Moffat, Dick and Jim could do was bow and shake their heads.
How much more is there to give, when you've given it your best.
But Brocky gave his life that day, would anyone oppose.
The King, he lived and died, doing what he loved the most.

Now 50 years have come to pass, for Bathurst, the great race.
With legends lining up throughout to claim their rightful place.
So raise a glass for Brocky, and his other fallen mates.
Cos they're the guys who gave it all, to make it bloody great.

And when the chequered flag does wave, another one is up.
Cheer for those who hold aloft, the very treasured cup.
See Brocky he'll be looking down, with smile from ear to ear.
He knows we'll all be back again in just another year.

[superyob]

That is bloody awesome Bent 8. Could I use it in my year 10 English class???

[superyob]

How to write love poetry!

Who are you, o wicked enchantress of my soul?
Is it you who makes the lightning flash and the thunder roll?
Are you a goddess sent from heaven to earth,
To torture my mind for your own personal mirth?

Who are you, o Aphrodite who drives men mad?
A daemon from Hell, a woman who is BAD?
You sexy slinky siren so desirably svelte,
Your ravishing opulent beauty alone makes me melt.

I do not know quite what I feel for you,
More than a crush, yet a hunger so true,
A burning insatiable frenzy of desire,
A yearning, a wanting, an unquenchable fire.

And I want you for more than just wicked delight,
I want to know who you are, what fuels your night.
What fills you with dread, what makes you shiver?
What makes you smile, what makes you quiver?

This sort of verse is poetry to be written
To all womenfolk by a bloke who is smitten
By her charms, her looks, the smile on her face
The smooth silky touch of her sensuous embrace.

But here is a warning, fair but true,
Do not pen such to harlots, or the day you will rue.
For casting your desire before sour wine
Will doom you for eternity, burning in lime...