Temat: Favourite poems:

Rafal W.:

Tatiana S.:
Not so sure, Raf.
I find British accents utterly amusing though. :)

It sure is, it makes cursing somebody out sound so damn polite.

I don't know, it depends on where that person is from. I never had any close acquaintances who were British until I started working in the languages abroad business and met all those people from different schools all over the UK. Still, I am more comfortable around Americans - and it's also social and lifestyle issues.
As for accent, I like it when people speak clearly and are able to produce English sounds more or less correctly, but I'd never expect anyone to lose their accent.

Temat: Favourite poems:

A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS
IN TEN LYRIC PIECES

His Excuse for Loving

Let it not your wonder move,
Less your laughter, that I love.
Though I now write fifty years,
I have had, and have my peers ;
Poets, though divine, are men :
Some have loved as old again.
And it is not always face,
Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace ;
Or the feature, or the youth :
But the language, and the truth,
With the order, and the passion,
Gives the lover weight, and fashion.
If you then will read the story,
First, prepare you to be sorry,
That you never knew till now,
Either whom to love, or how :
But be glad as soon with me,
When you know that this is she,
Of whose beauty it was sung,
She shall make the old Man young,
Keep the middle age at stay,
And let nothing high decay ;
Till she be the reason why,
All the words for Love may die.

http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=K6JMZlr5r9I ;-)

Temat: Favourite poems:

This used to be my late Grandfather's favourite poem. I do miss him so much.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Crossing the Bar

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me.
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark:
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face,
When I have crost the bar

And this piece of music was always played on all family occasions we have had so far,his funeral included.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMlxM69ZJFAMichał B. edytował(a) ten post dnia 02.11.08 o godzinie 09:18

Temat: Favourite poems:

Michał B.:

Michał, have you heard it? : pl.youtube.com/watch?v=K6JMZlr5r9I

It's me again ;-)

Regards
Luke

Temat: Favourite poems:

Łukasz, that's unforgivable - I didn't notice the link. I visited the thread on a day that was too sad in general, typed in (not pasted, mind you!) my poem and left it until a few minutes ago when I saw your name on my screen. :)
Do you think Ben Jonson is difficult to recite? To me, you did very well. I presume it should be done in this "Twinkle, twinkle little star" way.
I wish Warren was here to tell you more about your English etc.
A day on GL without Tatiana, Lidia, Violetta, Warren, Jarek, Rafał and Steve is sooo sad :(

Łukasz, please let us listen to some more poems?

Temat: Favourite poems:

Michał B.:
Łukasz, that's unforgivable - I didn't notice the link. I visited the thread on a day that was too sad in general, typed in (not pasted, mind you!) my poem and left it until a few minutes ago when I saw your name on my screen. :)
Do you think Ben Jonson is difficult to recite? To me, you did very well. I presume it should be done in this "Twinkle, twinkle little star" way.
I wish Warren was here to tell you more about your English etc.
A day on GL without Tatiana, Lidia, Violetta, Warren, Jarek, Rafał and Steve is sooo sad :(

Łukasz, please let us listen to some more poems?

Michał,

I am so glad that you like it, I will continue with my reciting as soon as I get more time ;-)
At first it was pretty hard for me to recite Jonson's poetry, as his poems are not so easy to recite with the very fluent and very correct pronunciation plus proper aspiration.

Yup, it' so sad without our whole GL-English crew.

Next time I will try to recite one of your favourites.
Best wishes!!!

Temat: Favourite poems:

Łukasz, believe me or not, but I wrote a long post in reply to yours, then pressed something thoughtlessly and the whole post disappeared like a soap bubble. Must be one of those bad days. :)
I wrote a little about my acting background (the last time I appeared on stage was in the third form of primary school - they didn't like my monotoneous voice). Then I talked about a Polish actor whose name I can't remember and who once talked, in the radio, about the hell he had to go through before he appeared in one of Shakespeare's plays staged by one of London's theatres. He learned line by line, with a native specialist helping him 24 hours a day for a month or two.

I'm looking forward to your next performance in our thread (actually, Warren's thread). You have no mercy on me! :) Now I will keep visiting this page every other minute round the clock.
And I will also listen to the poems you have already sent us.

Temat: Favourite poems:

While waiting for Łukasz's new recording, which, I hope, he is working hard on :), I had to study a vast material on Boudica, including the poem "Boadicea" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.


Boadicea


While about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries
Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess,
Far in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,
Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility,
Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camulodune,
Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy.

`They that scorn the tribes and call us Britain's barbarous populaces,
Did they hear me, would they listen, did they pity me supplicating?
Shall I heed them in their anguish? shall I brook to be supplicated?
Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!
Must their ever-ravening eagle's beak and talon annihilate us?
Tear the noble hear of Britain, leave it gorily quivering?
Bark an answer, Britain's raven! bark and blacken innumerable,
Blacken round the Roman carrion, make the carcase a skeleton,
Kite and kestrel, wolf and wolfkin, from the wilderness, wallow in it,
Till the face of Bel be brighten'd, Taranis be propitiated.
Lo their colony half-defended! lo their colony, Camulodune!
There the horde of Roman robbers mock at a barbarous adversary.
There the hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor-idiot.
Such is Rome, and this her deity: hear it, Spirit of Cassivelaun!

`Hear it, Gods! the Gods have heard it, O Icenian, O Coritanian!
Doubt not ye the Gods have answer'd, Catieuchlanian, Trinobant.
These have told us all their anger in miraculous utterances,
Thunder, a flying fire in heaven, a murmur heard aerially,
Phantom sound of blows descending, moan of an enemy massacred,
Phantom wail of women and children, multitudinous agonies.
Bloodily flow'd the Tamesa rolling phantom bodies of horses and men;
Then a phantom colony smoulder'd on the refluent estuary;
Lastly yonder yester-even, suddenly giddily tottering--
There was one who watch'd and told me--down their statue of Victory fell.
Lo their precious Roman bantling, lo the colony Camulodune,
Shall we teach it a Roman lesson? shall we care to be pitiful?
Shall we deal with it as an infant? shall we dandle it amorously?

`Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!
While I roved about the forest, long and bitterly meditating,
There I heard them in the darkness, at the mystical ceremony,
Loosely robed in flying raiment, sang the terrible prophetesses.
"Fear not, isle of blowing woodland, isle of silvery parapets!
Tho' the Roman eagle shadow thee, tho' the gathering enemy narrow thee,
Thou shalt wax and he shall dwindle, thou shalt be the mighty one yet!
Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated,
Thine the myriad-rolling ocean, light and shadow illimitable,
Thine the lands of lasting summer, many-blossoming Paradises,
Thine the North and thine the South and thine the battle-thunder of God."
So they chanted: how shall Britain light upon auguries happier?
So they chanted in the darkness, and there cometh a victory now.

Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!
Me the wife of rich Prasutagus, me the lover of liberty,
Me they seized and me they tortured, me they lash'd and humiliated,
Me the sport of ribald Veterans, mine of ruffian violators!
See they sit, they hide their faces, miserable in ignominy!
Wherefore in me burns an anger, not by blood to be satiated.
Lo the palaces and the temple, lo the colony Camulodune!
There they ruled, and thence they wasted all the flourishing territory,
Thither at their will they haled the yellow-ringleted Britoness--
Bloodily, bloodily fall the battle-axe, unexhausted, inexorable.
Shout Icenian, Catieuchlanian, shout Coritanian, Trinobant,
Till the victim hear within and yearn to hurry precipitously
Like the leaf in a roaring whirlwind, like the smoke in a hurricane whirl'd.
Lo the colony, there they rioted in the city of Cunobeline!
There they drank in cups of emerald, there at tables of ebony lay,
Rolling on their purple couches in their tender effeminacy.
There they dwelt and there they rioted; there--there--they dwell no more.
Burst the gates, and burn the palaces, break the works of the statuary,
Take the hoary Roman head and shatter it, hold it abominable,
Cut the Roman boy to pieces in his lust and voluptuousness,
Lash the maiden into swooning, me they lash'd and humiliated,
Chop the breasts from off the mother, dash the brains of the little one out,
Up my Britons, on my chariot, on my chargers, trample them under us.'

So the Queen Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,
Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like,
Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters in her fierce volubility.
Till her people all around the royal chariot agitated,
Madly dash'd the darts together, writhing barbarous lineaments,
Made the noise of frosty woodlands, when they shiver in January,
Roar'd as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices,
Yell'd as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a promontory.
So the silent colony hearing her tumultuous adversaries
Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand,
Thought on all her evil tyrannies, all her pitiless avarice,
Till she felt the heart within her fall and flutter tremulously,
Then her pulses at the clamoring of her enemy fainted away.
Out of evil evil flourishes, out of tyranny tyranny buds.
Ran the land with Roman slaughter, multitudinous agonies.
Perish'd many a maid and matron, many a valorous legionary.
Fell the colony, city, and citadel, London, Verulam, Camulodune.

And this is the Statue of Boudica (and her two daughters)by Thomas Thornycroft in London.



Michał B. edytował(a) ten post dnia 17.11.08 o godzinie 16:45

Temat: Favourite poems:

Richard Castaneda


Freedom


Someone has taken my freedom of sleep,

my freedom to dream.

I sit
awake, and wonder why it's four in the morning and why I have to get up
in an hour.

You ever wonder what freedom means?

It means different things to diffrent people. It varies on the context
in which that person uses it.

Some believe that you have freedom to say whatever, no matter how
hurtful or, tasteless it is.

freedom to voice your political opinion.

freedom to ignore right from wrong.

freedom to don't give a shit!

freedom to shrug responsibility.

freedom to be selfish.

freedom to ignore other peoples freedoms and state opinions on others
rights.

Not all can use freedom responsibly, nowdays people don't earn freedom,
It's a birthright. A gift, from those who protect and provide. now not
all aspects of this are negative.
Some use their freedom in positive ways. to help or otherwise uplift
someones spirits.

financal freedom, Rich man...poor man.

freedom to call loved ones.

freedom to visit friends with no boundries.

freedom to sneek in and kiss your childs head in the middle of the
night.

freedom to wake up and eat a peanut butter, honey and bannana sandwich.

freedom to alter your busy scheduel.

freedom to stop and smell the roses.

freedom to call in sick, so you can lay in bed all day with your lover.

freedom to gank that last piece of pizza.

freedom to choose and follow any person, or deity that brings comfort
for your soul.

No one can limit these, or take them away completely.
Choose your own...good or bad.
live or ignore them,
recognize, or defy them...

that's your freedom.

Temat: Favourite poems:

Young England – What is Then Become of Old

~

Young England - what is then become of Old
Of dear Old England? Think they she is dead,
Dead to the very name? Presumption fed
On empty air! That name will keep its hold
In the true filial bosom's inmost fold
For ever. The Spirit of Alfred, at the head
Of all who for her rights watched, toiled and bled,
Knows that this prophecy is not too bold.
What - how! shall she submit in will and deed
To Beardless Boys - an imitative race, 10
The 'servum pecus' of a Gallic breed?
Dear Mother! if thou 'must' thy steps retrace,
Go where at least meek Innocency dwells;
Let Babes and Sucklings be thy oracles.

- William Wordsworth

Temat: Favourite poems:

Anonymous (1675)

England
Oh, England!
Sick in head and sick in heart,
Sick in whole and every part:
And yet sicker thou art still
For thinking that thou art not ill.

Temat: Favourite poems:

Lyrics to When The Sun Goes Down:

Who's that girl there?
I wonder what went wrong
So that she had to roam the streets
She dunt do major credit cards
I doubt she does receipts
It's all not quite legitimate

And what a scummy man
Just give him half a chance
I bet he'll rob you if he can
Can see it in his eyes,
Yeah, that he's got a driving ban
Amongst some other offences

And I've seen him with girls of the night
And he told Roxanne to put on her red light
They're all infected but he'll be alright
Cause he's a scumbag, don't you know
I said he's a scumbag, don't you know!

Although you're trying not to listen
Overt your eyes and staring at the ground
She makes a subtle proposition
"I'm sorry love I'll have to turn you down"

He must be up to something
What are the chances sure it's more than likely
I've got a feeling in my stomach
I start to wonder what his story might be

They said it changes when the sun goes down
Around here

Look here comes a Ford Mondeo
Isn't he Mister Inconspicuous?
And he don't even have to say 'owt
She's in the stance ready to get picked up

Bet she's delighted when she sees him
Pulling in and giving her the eye
Because she must be fucking freezing
Scantily clad beneath the clear night sky
it doesn't stop in the winter, no
Around here

They said it changes when the sun goes down
Over the river going out of town

What a scummy man
Just give him half a chance
I bet he'll rob you if he can
Can see it in his eyes that he's got a nasty plan
I hope you're not involved at all

Temat: Favourite poems:

Lord Byron

All is Vanity
~

Fame, wisdom, love, and power were mine,
And health and youth possessed me;
My goblets blushed from every vine,
And lovely forms caressed me;
I sunned my heart in beauty’ eyes,
And felt my soul grow tender;
All earth can give, or mortal prize,
Was mine of regal splendour.

I strive to number o’er what days
Remembrance can discover,
Which all that life or earth displays
Would lure me to live over.
There rose no day, there rolled no hour
Of pleasure unembittered;
And not a trapping decked my power
That galled not while it glittered.

The serpent of the field, by art
And spells, is won from harming;
But that which soils around the heart,
Oh! who hath power of charming?
It will not list to wisdom’s lore,
Nor music’s voice can lure it;
But there it stings for evermore
The soul that must endure it.



Michał B. edytował(a) ten post dnia 15.12.08 o godzinie 22:38

Temat: Favourite poems:

Dreams

All people dream, but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind,
Wake in the morning to find that it was vanity.

But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people,
For they dream their dreams with open eyes,
And make them come true.



Poem by: D.H.Lawrence





D.H.Lawrence(right) with Aldous Huxley(left)Michał B. edytował(a) ten post dnia 15.12.08 o godzinie 22:45

Temat: Favourite poems:

Charles Bukowski - BEER
from: Love is A Mad Dog From Hell

I don't know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I dont know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women-
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
"what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can fuck me!"

the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than the male, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows its bad for the figure.

while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horney cowboys.

well, there's beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick one up
the bottle fall through the wet bottom
of the paper sack
rolling
clanking
spilling gray wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 a.m.
in the morning
making the only sound in your life.

beer
rivers and seas of beer
the radio singing love songs
as the phone remains silent
and the walls stand
straight up and down
and beer is all there is.

Always strikes me :) Although there's little personal bio here ;-)

Temat: Favourite poems:

Very sad, but very powerful 9/11 poem by Wislawa Szymborska

They jumped from the burning floors—
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.

The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth.

Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.

There’s enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys and coins
to fall from pockets.

They’re still within the air’s reach,
within the compass of places
that have just now opened.

I can do only two things for them—
describe this flight
and not add a last line.

Temat: Favourite poems:

I like some of Pablo Neruda poems,
here is the one I really liked, called "If You Forget Me",
enjoy:)



I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Pablo Neruda

Temat: Favourite poems:

I'm not into poetry at all. I don't understand it. I remembered one 'poem' (not sure if it can be called that) from my teen years, though.

It's friggin' long so I'll only paste here a small part of it. Follow the link below to read the whole piece, if you feel like it that is.

The Raven

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.'

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
This it is, and nothing more,'

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
`Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; -
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!'
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
`Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
'Tis the wind and nothing more!'

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
`Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art sure no craven.
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore -
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

E.A.Poe

Temat: Favourite poems:

A Day By The Sea, 1980 by David Axton

‘Where shall we go?’ I asked, and they said
The beach was place to be
So w loaded the car and after an hour
I was parked a mile from the sea.

We wlaked to the beach, me, my wife and the kids,
With arms full of all we would need:
Buckets and spades and bats and balls
And things for a jolly good feed.

I laid out a blanket with a rock on each corner
And said it was time we should eat,
Then stubbed my toe on one of the rocks
And found tar all over my feet.

I sat on the crisps, split juice in the sand
And trod on the suncream, and then
Saw the children were digging up horrible things
Which we hurriedly buried again.

Then dark heavy clouds took over the sky
And a sea breeze began to blow:
So we huddled together and shivered a bit,
Waiting for the sun to show.

There was sand in the sandwiches, flies in the drinks
And the paper plates blew far away.
The ice cream had melted and a wasp found the pear,
So we decided to call it a day.

We packed up our bits and trudged back to the car
To find that I’d lost my key,
And my wife had left hers in her bag in the boot
So I called out RAC.

It was four hours later when we finally got home
And I wished we had gone to zoo,
But even then there was more to go wrong
‘Cos guess what I found on my shoe!

Temat: Favourite poems:

Michał B.:

The Pig recited by Luke