Temat: Favourite poems:

And this interpretation by Peter Lorre and Vincent Price might be even better for the night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lru8qPrr9w0&feature=rel...

Temat: Favourite poems:

Here is some street poetry from Blue - a young man from Brooklyn who stands at the A train station by my job and sells his self published books of his street wisdom. This one is from a book called "Corner Stores in the middle of the block"
Titled: "Going to Philly"

Unseen words carry no weight, but they can be heavy
they leave dents in my mind if I don't speak my mind,
that's why it's a must that I... speak my mind.

If not I can't sleep at night
It's like having bricks in my bed
There's a war going on inside of my head and truce is necessary so I speak up!
I be spitting in Ebonics when I be chilling with my people
We be conversing in a language that some might consider unfit for corporate America
That's when everybody wants to be somebody
Everybody wants to feel important but they're not willing to endure the rigors of the mission
We can't sit home watching television and think welfare is going to rectify our condition
Fronting like celebrities - making babies on top of babies
and we can't feed the ones we already have
We can make room for our rat's and roaches
and our pit bulls make a nice bed for our pet fleas
At the end of the week we buy beer and dog food with Food stamps while the children get a balanced breakfast of potato chips and Kool-Aid
Everybody is trying to get rich quick, playing Quick Pick but the next man is always the winner
That game makes money off poor people's misery
Misery loves company and that's why people that live along talk a lot!

I didn't get here in an inner tube just to become shark bait over the Atlantic... I WAS BORN HERE!
In the core of the apple, at the pit of the borough
I hung out with the rejects and the down trodden
but this city was rotten before I was begotten
So I ask you, am I the eye sore just because I was rats bigger than cats and a cool cat was the terminology to describe a friend back in '76
Now he's my dog
My girl is my bitch and my friends are my niggers...

I live underneath the under, at the bottom of the low
I was eavesdropping on Army ants tryin' to find a source of unity

I bought a bus ticket but I couldn't take it to the hereafter so I just settled in Philly, but when I got there the same bullshit was going on, so I came back and the minute I stepped off the bus all I could hear was, "excuse me, Brother
Pardon me, Black
Do you have a quarter?
Do you have a nickle?
Do you have a dime?
Do you have a cigarette?
Do you have a light?
Do you have the time?
Pray to Jesus
Pray to Jehovah
Pray to Jah
Pray to Allah
PRAY TO GIULIANI BECAUSE HE THINKS HE'S GOD!!!
99.9 percent of the people in this world are convincing back stabbers!

"Don't eat sugar
don't eat salt
don't eat pork
don't eat meat
Save the dolphins
save the whales
save the children
save the rain forest"

TIME OUT, if life is a game, who's playing?
If we're a race, whose winning?

Being that we're at the door step of technology, Scientists are trying to mock the womb of a woman and create children without the act of sex
Viagra will be for some rich fuck that just wants to get his dick up, jack off in a jar... and then freeze his bastards to insure he has an hair to his crown...

EVERYONE LISTEN UP... Every mind is a world and only you can make you happy, just don't bother me with it!!!

That's why I stopped giving my money to bums!

I got tired of them throwing my pennies in the street
Then they act like they don't want to eat the food that I try to give'em
Don't you know this one bum told me he's a vegetarian!
He went on to say that life had thrown him a curve ball
I think he was trying to use me to get a hit

Bad habits stay on the shoulders of the rejects that wait for a check... then get upset when the mailman is late
Conflicts occur in the front lobby but he was the same guy that had the hobby just like he's was a millionaire, with sneakers piled up to the ceiling
buying a new pair when the first pair got dirty...
but now he's begging!
Contrary to popular belief, you can't get rich selling drugs
because a decent lawyer is expensive
but in every state there's a ghetto and in every ghetto ther's a corner and on that corner there's somebody thinking that they can defy the odds...

I guess its O.K. to sell death to the people as long as you "Keep It Real"
Because when you're "Keeping it real" that then gives you a reason to be part of the problem

People will go and protest police brutality but won't say anything about the pusher
That's because they know the pusher personally and he's just "Keeping it real"
We call each other brothers.. then we kill over colors and mug one another for chump change
and it's never enough change to change our standard of living but then we sit back and complain "that nobody gives a damn about the people in the hood!!!"
but what about the preachers and their fashion conscious congregation?
It's funny how black people had it all before segregation now it's like we don't have jack to show for it but a sign that reads: BUY BLACK
We call each other niggers and figure the bigger the gun the bigger the boy because he's the one that sits home watching TV
someone has him believing he's a straight up "GEE", so he keeps his right hand in his pocket and it's the same hand that he smacked his girl with
It's the same hand that he describes his words with
and its' connected to his trigger finger and it's all a bullshig concept of

Keeping it real!

- Blue



Rafal W. edytował(a) ten post dnia 08.10.08 o godzinie 16:32

Temat: Favourite poems:

Alicja Efejska:

Łukasz Klejment:
I would be so kind if I had known when and for whom ;-) but i don't have such knowledge. You may ask me then, why the hell I wrote that UAM is organising some poetry events??
So I answer you that one of my very friends had told me that he took part in such event. Furthermore it was organised for students and people who like poerty evenings, but only UAM' students had that privilege to perform. What was so great in this competition then? The very great thing was the presence of native speakers who in fact were pretty much advanced in poetry and British literature.
I am going to get a MD in English Philiogy at UAM, hope I will pass the very interview ;-) so when I will be the very student of UAMIFA I hope to have such possibility to perform with my pieces of poetry.

Thanks for the insight.:) And good luck with your MD and also reciting poetry. :)Alicja Efejska edytował(a) ten post dnia 07.10.08 o godzinie 22:29

Thx a lot Alicja, you're very nice.
I wish you all the best!!! :-)

Temat: Favourite poems:

Eva Cassidy singing one of the most beautiful poems about love:
Robert Burns - A Red Red Rose

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_gqctUZ4Oc

and this version is even better

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBCQMWMbeMU&feature=rel...Michał B. edytował(a) ten post dnia 12.10.08 o godzinie 01:21

Temat: Favourite poems:

And this version is awesome!
http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=ycKXRkF_o_Q

Temat: Favourite poems:

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

. . . .
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Temat: Favourite poems:

Yeah, very beautiful. I listened to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSprrAkBkGE

Temat: Favourite poems:

Time for Charles Bukowski

16-bit Intel 8088 chip
with an Apple Macintosh
you can't run Radio Shack programs
in its disc drive.
nor can a Commodore 64
drive read a file
you have created on an
IBM Personal Computer.
both Kaypro and Osborne computers use
the CP/M operating system
but can't read each other's
handwriting
for they format (write
on) discs in different
ways.
the Tandy 2000 runs MS-DOS but
can't use most programs produced for
the IBM Personal Computer
unless certain
bits and bytes are
altered
but the wind still blows over
Savannah
and in the Spring
the turkey buzzard struts and
flounces before his
hens.

Charles Bukowski

Temat: Favourite poems:

Czesław Miłosz, trans. by Clare Cavanagh

NORMALIZATION

This happened long ago, before the onset
of universal genetic correctness.

Boys and girls would stand naked before mirrors
studying the defects of their structure.

Nose too long, ears like burdocks,
sunken chin just like a mongoloid.

Breasts too small, too large, lopsided shoulders,
penis too short, hips too broad or else too narrow.

And just an inch or two taller!

Such was the house they inhabited for life.

Hiding, feigning, concealing defects.

But somehow they still had to find a partner.

Following incomprehensible tastes--airy creatures
paired with potbellies, skin and bones ...

Temat: Favourite poems:

Adam Zagajewski (b. 1945 - "Generation of'68")

Dead Sparrow

Among all objects

the dead sparrow in its gray greatcoat of feathers

is the least unusual.

Even a roadside stone looks like

life's prince when compared

with a dead sparrow.

Flies circle it,

intent as scholars.

Temat: Favourite poems:

Michał B.:
Łukasz, tell us a poem please.

Michał,

I did that because you had asked me:

http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=N8_BCvTMHxM&translated=1

Normally I don't do such things, as I hate commercialisation.

Sorry about those pictures, you may not like them but I couldn't find anything wiser!

Just listen, tell me what do you think and after that I will erase it.

Temat: Favourite poems:

I love this thread. I'm following along. :)))

Temat: Favourite poems:

The Realists

Hope that you may understand!
What can books of men that wive
In a dragon-guarded land,
Paintings of the dolphin-drawn
Sea-nymphs in their pearly wagons
Do, but awake a hope to live
That had gone
With the dragons?

-- William Butler Yeats

Temat: Favourite poems:

Łukasz Klejment:

Michał B.:
Łukasz, tell us a poem please.

Michał,

I did that because you had asked me:

http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=N8_BCvTMHxM&translated=1

Normally I don't do such things, as I hate commercialisation.

Sorry about those pictures, you may not like them but I couldn't find anything wiser!

Just listen, tell me what do you think and after that I will erase it.

Łukasz, one thing is sure - if you erase this, my heart will bleed.
I love your voice and interpretation. I wouldn't dare to comment on your English as there better expert in that field on Anglosphere - I mean native speakers of course. Please don't stop!
I'd love to hear you reciting other poems. Please send us more.
I feel so moved that I don't know what I'm saying now. What a lovely surprise you gave me this evening! Thank you.

Temat: Favourite poems:

At the very below you have got another one recited by me:

http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=5cuAdkaTdkc

Temat: Favourite poems:

Łukasz, one thing is sure - if you erase this, my heart will bleed.
I love your voice and interpretation. I wouldn't dare to comment on your English as there better expert in that field on Anglosphere - I mean native speakers of course. Please don't stop!
I'd love to hear you reciting other poems. Please send us more.
I feel so moved that I don't know what I'm saying now. What a lovely surprise you gave me this evening! Thank you.

Thanks a lot for your opinion, what's more I'm extremely happy that you like it.

OK. I will keep them for a while.

Peace mate

Temat: Favourite poems:

I love them!!!!!!!!!!
I love your English too! Bloody hell, where did you learn English?
Whatever Warren or Joy, or Steve say about it, I say it sounds very English to my ear. And you do it with so much ease.
I for all people forbid you to delete anything from this thread!

Temat: Favourite poems:

Łukasz K:

Łukasz, one thing is sure - if you erase this, my heart will bleed.
I love your voice and interpretation. I wouldn't dare to comment on your English as there better expert in that field on Anglosphere - I mean native speakers of course. Please don't stop!
I'd love to hear you reciting other poems. Please send us more.
I feel so moved that I don't know what I'm saying now. What a lovely surprise you gave me this evening! Thank you.

Thanks a lot for your opinion, what's more I'm extremely happy that you like it.

OK. I will keep them for a while.

Peace mate

Wow, to be honest I don't have anything in common with poetry but really BIG RESPECT, Lukasz.

Cheers mate.Marek S. edytował(a) ten post dnia 23.10.08 o godzinie 00:42

Temat: Favourite poems:

Łukasz, I could listen to you reciting one of my favourite poems:

William Wordsworth

"Tintern Abbey"

FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur. -- Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.

These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration: -- feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened: -- that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on, --
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft --
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart --
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all. -- I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye. -- That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear, -- both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance --
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence -- wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love -- oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

Temat: Favourite poems:

Out of curiosity, Lukasz, who teaches you English pronunciation?

Or are you self-taught?

Have you had much contact with native speakers?