big l - poems

LITERATURE IN ENGLISH – POETRY FORM 4 & 5

33

Theme : Conflicts


34

Dulce Et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, 1

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots 5

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; 10

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, 15

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 20

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest 25


35

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.


36

The Man He Killed (From "The Dynasts") Thomas Hardy

"HAD he and I but met 1

By some old ancient inn,

We should have sat us down to wet

Right many a nipperkin!

"But ranged as infantry,

And staring face to face, 5

I shot at him as he at me,

And killed him in his place.

"I shot him dead because—

Because he was my foe,

Just so: my foe of course he was; 10

That's clear enough; although

"He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,

Off-hand like—just as I—

Was out of work—had sold his traps—

No other reason why. 15

"Yes; quaint and curious war is!

You shoot a fellow down

You'd treat, if met where any bar is,

Or help to half-a-crown."


37

Death of a Rainforest Cecil Rajendra

i wrestle with a rhinoceros 1

but no words will come

i hear tall trees crashing

wild birds screeching

the buffalo stampeding 5


i hear sawmills buzzing

cash registers clicking

entrepreneurs yam-seng-ing

but no words will come 10

i hear of press conferences

of petitions, of signatures

of campaigns & lobbying


i hear the rain pounding 15

into desolate spaces

the widowed wind howling


the rhino is boxed & crated

merbok & meranti are gone 20

above, no monkeys swing

from no overhead branches


38

below, a pangolin stumbles

around amputated trunks

an orphaned butterfly 25

surveys the wounded jungle

yes, no words can fill

this gash of malevolence

but a terrible anger squats

hugging its knees in silence. 30


39

“The War against the Trees” Stanley Kunitz The man who sold his lawn to standard oil 1

Joked with his neighbors come to watch the show

While the bulldozers, drunk with gasoline,

Tested the virtue of the soil

Under a branchy sky 5

By overthrowing first the privet-row.

Forsythia-forays and hydrangea-raids

Were but preliminaries to a war

Against the great-grandfathers of the town,

So freshly lopped and maimed. 10

They struck and struck again,

And with each elm a century went down.

All day the hireling engines charged the trees,

Subverting them by hacking underground

In grub-dominions, where dark summer’s mole 15

Rampages through his halls,

Till a northern seizure shook

Those crowns, forcing the giants to their knees.

I saw the ghosts of children at their games

Racing beyond their childhood in the shade, 20

And while the green world turned its death-foxed page

And a red wagon wheeled,

I watched them disappear

Into the suburbs of their grievous age.

Ripped from the craters much too big for hearts 25

The club-roots bared their amputated coils,

Raw gorgons matted blind, whose pocks and scars


40

Cried Moon! on a corner lot

One witness-moment, caught

In the rear-view mirrors of the passing cars. 30


41

a quarrel between day and night Omar Mohd Noor

night proposed to day 1

‘i’ll take twelve hours

and you take twelve hours’

day had to accept it

for there was no alternative 5

or night will take twenty four

hours of fear of dream-thoughts

fastening us to deep darkness forever

but night cannot be trusted

it wanted the stars, moon and 10

all citylights

leaving only

the sun and one stray star

astray in early daylight

while day laughs at the wet sun 15

that is why I fear the night

always bringing dream-thoughts

making one hungry in the chest

the next morning,

a bad prelude to a working day 20

with only one forty minute break


42

“Crabbed age and youth cannot live together” (From “The Passionate Pilgrim, XII”) William Shakespeare

CRABBED age and youth cannot live together: 1

Youth is full of pleasure, age is full of care;

Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather;

Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare.

Youth is full of sport, age’s breath is short; 5

Youth is nimble, age is lame;

Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold;

Youth is wild, and age is tame.

Age, I do abhor thee, youth, I do adore thee;

O! my love, my love is young: 10

Age, I do defy thee: O! sweet shepherd, hie thee,

For methinks thou stay’st too long.


43

Theme : Perceptions of Self


44

Birches Robert Frost WHEN I see birches bend to left and right 1

Across the line of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.

Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them 5

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells 10

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed 15

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. 20

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

(Now am I free to be poetical?)

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows— 25

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,


45

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father's trees

By riding them down over and over again 30

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away 35

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, 40

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches;

And so I dream of going back to be.

It's when I'm weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood 45

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig's having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over. 50

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:

I don't know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, 55

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,


46

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. 60


47

‘I Am’ John Clare I am - yet what I am, none cares or knows: 1

My friends forsake me like a memory lost:-

I am the self-consumer of my woes:-

They rise and vanish in oblivion’s host,

Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes:- 5

And yet I am, and live – like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,

Into the living sea of waking dreams,

Where there is neither sense of life or joys,

But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems; 10

Even the dearest, that I love the best

Are strange --- nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes, where man hath never trod

A place where woman never smiled or wept

There to abide with my Creator, God; 15

And sleep as I in childhood, sweetly slept,

Untroubling, and untroubled where I lie,

The grass below --- above the vaulted sky.


48

This Is A Photograph Of Me Margaret Atwood

It was taken some time ago. 1

At first it seems to be

a smeared

print: blurred lines and grey flecks

blended with the paper; 5

then, as you scan

it, you see in the left-hand corner

a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree

(balsam or spruce) emerging

and, to the right, halfway up 10

what ought to be a gentle

slope, a small frame house.

In the background there is a lake,

and beyond that, some low hills.

(The photograph was taken 15

the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the center

of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where

precisely, or to say 20


49

how large or small I am:

the effect of water

on light is a distortion

but if you look long enough,

eventually 25

you will be able to see me.)


50

Waiting To Go On Hugo Williams I turned the pages slowly, listening for the car, 1

Till my father was young again, a soldier,

or throwing back his head

on slicked back Derby Days before the war.

I stared at all the fame and handsomeness 5

and thought they were the same.

Good looks were everything where I came from.

They made you laugh. They made you have a tan.

They made you speak with conviction.

‘Such a nice young man!’ my mother used to say. 10

‘So good looking!’ I didn’t agree with her,

but I searched my face for signs of excellence,

turning up my collar in the long narrow mirror on the stairs

and flourishing a dress sword at myself:

‘Hugh Williams, even more handsome in Regency!’ 15

The sound of wheels on the drive

meant I had about one minute

to put everything back where I’d found it

and come downstairs as myself.


51

Daring Tears Craig Romkema My grandpa died last night. 1

The family cried in grief and shock,

Holding each other in one group hug

While I sat by our space heater

And stared into the darkness. 5

I was crying inside too,

But no one knew

Because my face rarely shows

The struggles of my heart.

I remember one day when my emotions got through, 10

When my loneliness reached a point of desperation

And tears came pouring out.

Mom was there to hold me

Until my sobbing stilled.

Comfort is a privilege 15

But without communication

What chance is there of comfort?

Later last night Mom got out the board

And let me share my pain

Hugged me in spite of my stiff response, 20

Reached into my heart.

Never never think you understand

How we autistic people feel.

Underneath the giggles, we may be

Dying inside. 25


52

Thank God there is someone in my life

Who listens.


53

the traveller Muhammad Haji Salleh for i am only a traveller finding my way 1

among the streets of your new town,

i have other places to go to.

i shall someday work out a map of this city

and traverse it on foot, someday. 5

for i am only a traveller, and cannot stay longer

where there is no home.

take my love while you can, take my hatred,

take my weathered hand if you will,

for i shall have no home here, 10

among the dull hard buildings

where the heart cannot stay.

for i am only a traveller

on my way, to somewhere further than here.

this is the city that broke my heart, 15

that stole my feelings from me;

this is the city that took away my love,

that told me i must go away.

i must go, somewhere.

somewhere, where they can know me; 20

can recognise that i am a man.

some night when the city is asleep

i’ll walk out quietly along your cruel streets

through the suburban edge and into the dawn forests.


54

somewhere, perhaps near where the sun rises, 25

i can sit down,

and sometime perhaps, i can tell myself,

here, i am a man


55

Theme : Relationships


56

A Prayer For My Daughter William Butler Yeats

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid 1

Under this cradle-hood and coverlid

My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle

But Gregory's wood and one bare hill

Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind, 5

Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;

And for an hour I have walked and prayed

Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour

And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, 10

And under the arches of the bridge, and scream

In the elms above the flooded stream;

Imagining in excited reverie

That the future years had come,

Dancing to a frenzied drum, 15

Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

May she be granted beauty and yet not

Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,

Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,

Being made beautiful overmuch, 20

Consider beauty a sufficient end,

Lose natural kindness and maybe

The heart-revealing intimacy

That chooses right, and never find a friend.


57

Helen being chosen found life flat and dull 25

And later had much trouble from a fool,

While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,

Being fatherless could have her way

Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man.

It's certain that fine women eat 30

A crazy salad with their meat

Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.

In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned;

Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned

By those that are not entirely beautiful; 35

Yet many, that have played the fool

For beauty's very self, has charm made wise,

And many a poor man that has roved,

Loved and thought himself beloved,

From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes. 40

May she become a flourishing hidden tree

That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,

And have no business but dispensing round

Their magnanimities of sound,

Nor but in merriment begin a chase, 45

Nor but in merriment a quarrel.

O may she live like some green laurel

Rooted in one dear perpetual place.

My mind, because the minds that I have loved,

The sort of beauty that I have approved, 50

Prosper but little, has dried up of late,

Yet knows that to be choked with hate


58

May well be of all evil chances chief.

If there's no hatred in a mind

Assault and battery of the wind 55

Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.

An intellectual hatred is the worst,

So let her think opinions are accursed.

Have I not seen the loveliest woman born

Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn, 60

Because of her opinionated mind

Barter that horn and every good

By quiet natures understood

For an old bellows full of angry wind?

Considering that, all hatred driven hence, 65

The soul recovers radical innocence

And learns at last that it is self-delighting,

Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,

And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;

She can, though every face should scowl 70

And every windy quarter howl

Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

And may her bridegroom bring her to a house

Where all's accustomed, ceremonious;

For arrogance and hatred are the wares 75

Peddled in the thoroughfares.

How but in custom and in ceremony

Are innocence and beauty born?

Ceremony's a name for the rich horn,

And custom for the spreading laurel tree. 80


59

The Way Things Are

Roger McGough No, the candle is not crying, it can not feel pain. 1

Even telescopes, like the rest of us, grow bored.

Bubblegum will not make the hair soft and shiny.

The duller the imagination, the faster the car,

I am your father and that is the way things are. 5

When the sky is looking the other way,

do not enter the forest. No, the wind

is not caused by the rushing of clouds.

An excuse is as good a reason as any.

A lighthouse, launched, will not go far, 10

I am your father and that is the way things are.

No, old people do not walk slowly

because they have plenty of time.

Gardening books when buried will not flower.

Though lightly worn, a crown may leave a scar, 15


No, the red woolly hat has not been

put on the railing to keep it warm.

When one glove is missing, both are lost.

Today's craft fair is tomorrows boot sale. 20

The guitarist weeps gently, not the guitar


Pebbles work best without batteries.

The deckchair will fail as a unit of currency.

Even though your shadow is shortening 25

it does not mean you are growing smaller.


60

Moonbeams sadly, will not survive in a jar,


For centuries the bullet remained quietly confident

that the gun would be invented. 30

A drowning surrealist will not appreciate

the concrete lifebelt.

No guarantee my last goodbye is an au revoir,


Do not become a prison officer unless you know 35

what your letting someone else in for.

The thrill of being a shower curtain will soon pall.

No trusting hand awaits a falling star

I am your father, and I am sorry

but this is the way things are. 40


61

For my old amah Wong Phui Nam

To most your dying seems distant, 1

outside the palings of our concern.

Only to you the fact was real

when the flame caught among the final brambles

of your pain. And lying there 5

in this cubicle, on your trestle,

over the old newspapers and spittoon,

your face bears the waste of terror

at the crumbling of your body’s walls.

The moth fluttering against the electric bulb, 10

and on the wall your old photographs,

do not know your going. I do not know

when it has wrenched open the old wounds.

When branches snapped in the dark

you would have had a god among the trees 15

make us a journey of your going.

Your palm crushed the child’s tears from my face.

Now this room will become your going, brutal

in the discarded combs, the biscuit tins

and neat piles of your dresses. 20


62

Sonnet 43 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. (From The Portuguese) Elizabeth Barrett Browning How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 1

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's 5

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 10

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints!---I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.


63

Ways Of Love Chung Yee Chong

i 1

you came

like the rain

without warning

then you are the sun 5

burns me

consumes me

and i to marry your warmth

almost like a shadow?

ii 10

i stood

a woman apart

but you never walked

over

and i am still 15

standing

iii

you could have made

a most royal subject

worn your armour 20

and charged your steed

you could have swept me

off my feet –


64

instead

you wore your heart 25

on a sleeve

and asked for love

i could not give

so i left you

a broken king 30

wounded your pride

when i could not queen

iv

between us

there are bridges of words 35

your eyes could never burn –

it isn’t through

a lack of desire

to set up what is a fire

but where lips touch 40

and hands meet

can never hope to reach

the loneliness beneath

the loneliness beneath

v 45

touch is not all ---

feeling at home with it

i've grown numb

to its call


65

somehow 50

now

what hammers out

this perverse passion

to kill

to will 55

you in entirely

is love

is what it’s all about


66

Tonight I Can Write Pablo Neruda (translated by W.S. Merwin) Tonight I can write the saddest lines. 1

Write, for example, 'The night is shattered

and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. 5

I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through the nights like this one I held her in my arms.

I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.

How could one not have loved her great still eyes. 10

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her. 15

The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.


67

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.

My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. 20

The same night whitening the same trees.

We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another’s. She will be another’s. Like my kisses before. 25

Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. 30

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her.

big l - poems

Documents

form 4 amp

saddest lines

loneliness

english poetry

love thee

longer love

crabbed age

wind