there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average human being to supply any given army on any given day
and the best at murder are those who preach against it and the best at hate are those who preach love and the best at war finally are those who preach peace
those who preach god, need god those who preach peace do not have peace those who preach peace do not have love
beware the preachers beware the knowers beware those who are always reading books beware those who either detest poverty or are proud of it beware those quick to praise for they need praise in return beware those who are quick to censor they are afraid of what they do not know beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone beware the average man the average woman beware their love, their love is average seeks average
but there is genius in their hatred there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you to kill anybody not wanting solitude not understanding solitude they will attempt to destroy anything that differs from their own not being able to create art they will not understand art they will consider their failure as creators only as a failure of the world not being able to love fully they will believe your love incomplete and then they will hate you and their hatred will be perfect
like a shining diamond like a knife like a mountain like a tiger like hemlock
Where the mind is without fear and the head held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action; Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
I am, O Anxious One. Don't you hear my voice surging forth with all my earthly feelings? They yearn so high, that they have sprouted wings and whitely fly in circles round your face. My soul, dressed in silence, rises up and stands alone before you: can't you see? don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe upon your vision as upon a tree? If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream. But when you want to wake, I am your wish, and I grow strong with all magnificence and turn myself into a star's vast silence above the strange and distant city, Time.
I remember seeing him in the 80's. He has opened for such acts as the Sex Pistols, The Fall, Joy Division, Buzzcocks and Elvis Costello and I saw him performing lively, rapid-fire renditions of his poems, which were usually performed a cappella. Good fun - another who speaks proper Northern English
Far from the crazy pavements ...the taste of silver spoons A clinical arrangement ...on a dirty afternoon Where the fecal germs of Mr Freud ...are rendered obsolete The legal term is null and void in the case of ... Beasley street
In the cheap seats where murder breeds somebody is out of breath Sleep is a luxury they don't need ... a sneak preview of death Belladonna is your flower Manslaughter is your meat Spend a year in a couple of hours on the edge of Beasley street
Where the action isn't That's where it is State your position Vacancies exist In an X-certificate exercise Ex-servicemen excrete Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies in a box on Beasley street
This poem, a sonnet, appears in The World's Wife, published in 1999, a collection of poems. The poem is based on the famous passage from Shakespeare's will regarding his "second-best bed". Duffy chooses the view that this would be their marriage bed, and so a memento of their love, not a slight. Anne remembers their lovemaking as a form of "romance and drama", unlike the "prose" written on the best bed used by guests, "I hold him in the casket of my widow's head/ as he held me upon that next best bed".
Anne Hathaway by Carol Ann Duffy from The World's Wife
'Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed ...' (from Shakespeare's will)
The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme to his, now echo, assonance; his touch a verb dancing in the centre of a noun. Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste. In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on, dribbling their prose. My living laughing love - I hold him in the casket of my widow's head as he held me upon that next best bed.
For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
The ponies run, the girls are young, The odds are there to beat. You win a while, and then it’s done – Your little winning streak. And summoned now to deal With your invincible defeat, You live your life as if it’s real, A Thousand Kisses Deep.
I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed, I’m back on Boogie Street. You lose your grip, and then you slip Into the Masterpiece. And maybe I had miles to drive, And promises to keep: You ditch it all to stay alive, A Thousand Kisses Deep.
And sometimes when the night is slow, The wretched and the meek, We gather up our hearts and go, A Thousand Kisses Deep.
Confined to sex, we pressed against The limits of the sea: I saw there were no oceans left For scavengers like me. I made it to the forward deck. I blessed our remnant fleet – And then consented to be wrecked, A Thousand Kisses Deep.
I’m turning tricks, I’m getting fixed, I’m back on Boogie Street. I guess they won’t exchange the gifts That you were meant to keep. And quiet is the thought of you, The file on you complete, Except what we forgot to do, A Thousand Kisses Deep.
And sometimes when the night is slow, The wretched and the meek, We gather up our hearts and go, A Thousand Kisses Deep.
The ponies run, the girls are young, The odds are there to beat . . .
The worst poet in the English language - you decide
Immortal! William Shakespeare, there's none can you excel, You have drawn out your characters remarkably well, Which is delightful for to see enacted upon the stage For instance, the love-sick Romeo, or Othello, in a rage; His writings are a treasure, which the world cannot repay, He was the greatest poet of the past or of the present day Also the greatest dramatist, and is worthy of the name, I'm afraid the world shall never look upon his like again. His tragedy of Hamlet is moral and sublime, And for purity of language, nothing can be more fine For instance, to hear the fair Ophelia making her moan, At her father's grave, sad and alone.... In his beautiful play, "As You Like It," one passage is very fine, Just for instance in fhe forest of Arden, the language is sublime, Where Orlando speaks of his Rosilind, most lovely and divine, And no other poet I am sure has written anything more fine; His language is spoken in the Church and by the Advocate at the bar, Here and there and everywhere throughout the world afar; His writings abound with gospel truths, moral and sublime, And I'm sure in my opinion they are surpassing fine; In his beautiful tragedy of Othello, one passage is very fine, Just for instance where Cassio looses his lieutenancy ... By drinking too much wine; And in grief he exclaims, "Oh! that men should put an Enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains." In his great tragedy of Richard the III, one passage is very fine Where the Duchess of York invokes the aid of the Divine For to protect her innocent babes from the murderer's uplifted hand, And smite him powerless, and save her babes, I'm sure 'tis really grand. Immortal! Bard of Avon, your writings are divine, And will live in the memories of your admirers until the end of time; Your plays are read in family circles with wonder and delight, While seated around the fireside on a cold winter's night.
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I've just revisited Stratford after 30 years and found it to be rather a tourist trap - Shakespeare's birthplace and grave are certainly there as are churches etc.
The real jewel in the crown is the Royal Shakespeare - you can see it is being renovated with the Courtyard being the RSC temporary home. We met brother and sister in-law to see As You Like It
All the world's a stage As You Like It 2/7
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Absolutely superb - I've seen Shakespeare in prestigious venues, on film and read but these were brilliant. Done in the round with the minimum of scenery - the power of the words and the performance mesmerising. The play is so upbeat anyway.
They went to sea in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they went to sea: In spite of all their friends could say, On a winter's morn, on a stormy day, In a Sieve they went to sea! And when the Sieve turned round and round, And every one cried, `You'll all be drowned!' They called aloud, `Our Sieve ain't big, But we don't care a button! we don't care a fig! In a Sieve we'll go to sea!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.
They sailed away in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they sailed so fast, With only a beautiful pea-green veil Tied with a riband by way of a sail, To a small tobacco-pipe mast; And every one said, who saw them go, `O won't they be soon upset, you know! For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long, And happen what may, it's extremely wrong In a Sieve to sail so fast!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.
The water it soon came in, it did, The water it soon came in; So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet In a pinky paper all folded neat, And they fastened it down with a pin. And they passed the night in a crockery-jar, And each of them said, `How wise we are! Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long, Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong, While round in our Sieve we spin!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.
And all night long they sailed away; And when the sun went down, They whistled and warbled a moony song To the echoing sound of a coppery gong, In the shade of the mountains brown. `O Timballo! How happy we are, When we live in a Sieve and a crockery-jar, And all night long in the moonlight pale, We sail away with a pea-green sail, In the shade of the mountains brown!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.
They sailed to the Western Sea, they did, To a land all covered with trees, And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart, And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart, And a hive of silvery Bees. And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws, And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws, And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree, And no end of Stilton Cheese. Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.
And in twenty years they all came back, In twenty years or more, And every one said, `How tall they've grown! For they've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone, And the hills of the Chankly Bore!' And they drank their health, and gave them a feast Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast; And every one said, `If we only live, We too will go to sea in a Sieve,--- To the hills of the Chankly Bore!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.
I had to learn this at school, redolent with all sorts of images for a young teenager fumbling towards sexual awareness. Penguin Classics were and are a source of inspiration for me John Keats: The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)
I. O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither’d from the lake, And no birds sing.
II.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! 5 So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel’s granary is full, And the harvest’s done.
III.
I see a lily on thy brow With anguish moist and fever dew, 10 And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too.
IV.
I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful—a faery’s child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, 15 And her eyes were wild.
V.
I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look’d at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. 20
VI.
I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery’s song.
VII.
She found me roots of relish sweet, 25 And honey wild, and manna dew, And sure in language strange she said— “I love thee true.”
VIII.
She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept, and sigh’d fill sore, 30 And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four.
IX.
And there she lulled me asleep, And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dream’d 35 On the cold hill’s side.
X.
I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!” 40
XI.
I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill’s side.
XII.
And this is why I sojourn here, 45 Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake, And no birds sing.
