Favorite Poems (let's collect some)

[Dave King]

Favorite Poems (let\'s collect some)

I'll start (of course)!



How Did You Die?
Edmund Vance Cook
1866-1932)


Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven soul and fearful?
Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it.
And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it?


You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It's nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there -- that's disgrace.
The harder you're thrown, why the higher you bounce;
Be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts;
It's how did you fight and why?


And though you be done to death, what then?
If you battled the best you could;
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the Critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he's slow or spry,
It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts,
But only, how did you die?

 

[Ian M]

Re: Favorite Poems (let\'s collect some)

Dave,
You and I are working at slightly different levels...
I am going to a Dora the Explorer concert this afternoon with my 2 1/2 year old grand daughter - she is the big influence in my life right now. Here is one of our current fav's, although the alphabet and counting to ten is right up there. She also likes, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" but doesn't have all of the verses yet...

The eeensy, weeensy spider
Went up the water spout...
Down came the rain,
And washed the spider out!!

Up came the sun,
And dried up all the rain
And the eensy, weensy spider
Went up the spout again!!

There are hand and body movements for the above but I don't have them mastered yet - she is teaching me tho /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Dave King]

Re: Favorite Poems (let\'s collect some)

Ian

How about Shel Silverstein's

"Fleas"

Adam
Had 'em

 

[Ian M]

Re: Favorite Poems (let\'s collect some)

Dave,
That is about my speed, Thanks, I like it!
ian

 

[Buffalobob]

Re: Favorite Poems (let\'s collect some)

My Favorite previously posted - Robert Frost The Road Not Taken

Best tree hugging poem

Best Opening verse - 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 someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;
Only this, and nothing more."

 

[royinidaho]

Re: Favorite Poems (let\'s collect some)

One of my motivators:
"And nothing to look backward on with pride,
And nothing to look forward to with hope."
-Robert Frost, The Death of the Hired Man

With my children and now my grand children:

I looked out the window and what did I see?
Popcorn popping on the apricote tree!

Spring had brought me a nice supprise,
Popcorn popping right before my eyes!

I could take an armful and maka treat
A popcorn ball that would smell so sweet

an on an on.....

W/the hand motions its a fun one.....

 

[col48]

Re: Favorite Poems (let\'s collect some)

I'm not a pheasant plucker
I'm a pheasant plucker's son
I'm only plucking pheasants
till the pheasant plucking done.


as i awoke this morning
the room was calm and still
there was a little Robin
upon my window sill
it sang so sweetly
as i climbed from off my bed
and then i closed the window
and crushed its flaming head.

 

[Centre Punch]

Re: Favorite Poems (let\'s collect some)

One fine day in the middle of the night,
Two dead men got up to fight,
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other,
A paralysed donkey walking by,
Kicked a blind man in the eye,
Knocked him through a two inch wall,
Into a dry ditch and drowned them all.

Ian.

 

[Buffalobob]

Re: Favorite Poems (let\'s collect some)

Ian and Roy

My favorite toddler book

The Bear & the Fly by Paula Winter

This is a wordless book and is the funniest book I have ever read. You make up the words and do all the sound effects and do the flopping over in the floor and smacking stuff. A well cared for hard cover version is worth $50.00. My copy had some applesauce spilled in it and got rolled on a couple of times so it is a little (or a lot) beat up.

If you make your living telling big lies, excuse me, I mean serious literary stories, then this is the book for you.

 

[James H]

Re: Favorite Poems (let\'s collect some)

[ QUOTE ]
One fine day in the middle of the night,
Two dead men got up to fight,
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other,
A paralysed donkey walking by,
Kicked a blind man in the eye,
Knocked him through a two inch wall,
Into a dry ditch and drowned them all.

Ian.

[/ QUOTE ]

Another version:
One bright morning in the middle of the night,
Two dead men got up to fight,
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other,
A deaf policeman heard the noise
And came and arrested the two little boys
And if you don't think this storys true
Go ask the blind man he saw it too.

 

[zingdingo]

Re: Favorite Poems (let\'s collect some)

Dave,

Thats a good one I haven't seen, glad you posted it.

My favorite:

If
Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!


I memorized it in ninth grade for bonus points, and in my opinion are worse things to have bouncing around your head.

Carl

 

[Dave King]

Re: Favorite Poems (let\'s collect some)

zingdingo

That was good, thanks.

Here's one a fella at work memorized while doing hard-time in a Catholic highschool.

Beware of Good Enough
author unknown

My Child, beware of "good enough,"
It isn't made of sterling stuff.
It's something anyone can do;
It marks the many from the few.

The flaw which may escape the eye,
And temporarily get by.
Shall weaken underneath the strain,
And wreck the ship, the car, or plane.

With "good enough," the car breaks down,
And one falls short of high renown.
My child, remember and be wise,
In "good enough", disaster lies.

With "good enough," the shirkers stop,
In every factory and shop;
With "good enough," the failures rest,
And lose the one who gives the best.

Who stops at "good enough" shall find,
Success has left them far behind.
For this is true of you and your stuff--
Only the best is "good enough."


(There are several variations of this, all are about the same... One might say any one of them is good enough.)

 

[Ian M]

Re: Favorite Poems (let\'s collect some)

Just back from the "big" concert. Average standing height of attendees, about to your belt buckle - probably about three years old. Very loud, but no sign of pot-smoking, lighter-flicking, people jumping from the stage onto the crowd. Dora was hot, she can really sing and dance. Boots was very lifelike, considering an actor had to play a cartoon monkey. Lot's of characters, including the pirate pigs who stole the **** treasure chest, took it to Treasure Island. Fortunately Dora had a map... in her BACKPACK. The audience yelled out BACKPACK loudly enough to loosen some of the girders in the roof. Big problem thoughout - SWIPER kept doing his thing but there is a magic sentence that stops him cold. Roof about lifted each time the audience had to stop old Swiper from swiping Dora's stuff. Makes a person plumb hate those **** foxes...
Have steel targets to shoot. Rifles to zero. Scopes to photograph. Shotgun slug test to shoot. Sun was shining, not much wind. Perfect day for shooting.
Rather be holding that little two and a half year old while she participated in the concert. Wasn't a concert to her, it was the REAL thing /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Off topic Dave, but I thought you might enjoy hearing about my afternoon.

 

[LRHWAL]

Re: Favorite Poems (let\'s collect some)

Ditto on Frost, my favourite favourite - particulalry "The Road Not Taken"

Another favourite:

William Henry Davies 1871-1940

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.


And whilst I find the idea of Coleridge having related the vision of an opium induced dream a bit off putting, his Kubla Kahn (or a Vision in a Dream) has always been a favourite too. Although some of the somewhat colourful interpretations can spoil it a bit.

Kubla Kahn

Rudyard Kipling's "If" would struggle to make the list, though superb. At High School we were made to write it out hundreds of times as punishment (instead of lines).

WL