Today's poet

[Stevie]

Barkley.

Wandering lost through the Tennessee night,
The sound of trees flow my gentle breeze,
Once more atop a briar filled peak waiting for the light,
Sun up over mountain ridge puts my mind at ease.

I find my true self within this Southern proving ground,
The peaks and blackberry thorn sleep deprived demon pouring scorn,
Snow and rain hit me hard knock me down upon this rock strewn mound,
A new me was discovered today thank you Barkley i am reborn.

This is good Leonidas. Referring to the Barkley Marathon?

[Nathaniel Lee]

Certainly is my brother and i are gonna spend next nearly 2 years getting ready. Actually me having to lose bags of weight then build up and my brother becoming superhuman from being just very fit. Gonna attempt to enter 2012 but this would be practice for 2013.

[Stevie]

The Worker's Song by Dropkick Murphys.


Yeh, this one's for the workers who toil night and day
By hand and by brain to earn your pay
Who for centuries long past for no more than your bread
Have bled for your countries and counted your dead

In the factories and mills, in the shipyards and mines
We've often been told to keep up with the times
For our skills are not needed, they've streamlined the job
And with sliderule and stopwatch our pride they have robbed


We're the first ones to starve, we're the first ones to die
The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky
And we're always the last when the cream is shared out
For the worker is working when the fat cat's about

And when the sky darkens and the prospect is war
Who's given a gun and then pushed to the fore
And expected to die for the land of our birth
Though we've never owned one lousy handful of earth?



All of these things the worker has done
From tilling the fields to carrying the gun
We've been yoked to the plough since time first began
And always expected to carry the can

Interesting! Having never heard of Dropkick Murphys I naturally thought these lines were written of the old industrial north. Along the lines of Billy Bragg except he's obviously not northern.

I was surprised to find the words are song lyrics and Dropkick Murphys is an American band. That is well dug out, Steve, and well worth posting.

[Stevie]

Speaking of Billy Bragg: Power of the Unions

There is power in a factory, power in the land
Power in the hands of a worker
But it all amounts to nothing if together we don’t stand there is power in a union

Now the lessons of the past were all learned with workers’ blood
The mistakes of the bosses we must pay for
From the cities and the farmlands to trenches full of mud
War has always been the bosses’ way, sir

The union forever defending our rights
Down with the blackleg, all workers unite
With our brothers and out sisters from many far off lands
There is power in a union

Now I long for the morning that they realise
Brutality and unjust laws can not defeat us
But who’ll defend the workers who cannot organise
When the bosses send their lackies out to cheat us?

Money speaks for money, the devil for his own
Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone
What a comfort to the widow, a light to the child
There is power in a union

The union forever defending our rights
Down with the blackleg, all workers unite
With our brothers and out sisters from many far off lands
There is power in a union.


I think the world has moved on a bit since Billy wrote this, but the feeling of workers' and peoples' solidarity against oppressive or out of line bosses and governments etc is always strong, and this comes across in Dropkick Murphys' song too.

[Alf]

Certainly is my brother and i are gonna spend next nearly 2 years getting ready. Actually me having to lose bags of weight then build up and my brother becoming superhuman from being just very fit. Gonna attempt to enter 2012 but this would be practice for 2013.

Wow! just read the Wiki :w00t: Tough trial that one Leonidas, wish you the best of luck just getting ready for it.

[XRunner]

If Daz H looks on this thread he will find the Lake District Lorton Vale Yew Trees as described by Willaim Wordsworth.


There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore:
Not loathe to furnish weapons for the Bands
Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched
To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the sea
And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary Tree! -a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed. But worthier still of note
Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! -and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveteratley convolved, -
Nor uninformed with Fantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; -a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially -beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked
With unrejoicing berries -ghostly Shapes
May meet at noontide: Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight, Death the Skeleton
And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.

[Nathaniel Lee]

Friday night,Saturday Morning.

Raw,Raw Chicken frozen on the fire,
Digitally applied barbecue sauce,
Swapping tales with the Barkley choir,
Chowing down a half cooked second course.

Laz takes his socks and number plates,
Smiling a knowing and mocking smile,
You know he knows all our fates,
Most of us spent by the 20th mile.

The cigarette glows red, Go !.

BB.

[Alf]

I Speak Not

I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name;
There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame;
But the tear that now burns on my cheek may impart
The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.
Too brief for our passion, too long for our peace,
Were those hours - can their joy or their bitterness cease?
We repent, we abjure, we will break from our chain, -
We will part, we will fly to - unite it again!
Oh! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt!
Forgive me, adored one! - forsake if thou wilt;
But the heart which is thine shall expire undebased,
And man shall not break it - whatever thou may'st.
And stern to the haughty, but humble to thee,
This soul in its bitterest blackness shall be;
And our days seem as swift, and our moments more sweet,
With thee at my side, than with worlds at our feet.
One sigh of thy sorrow, one look of thy love,
Shall turn me or fix, shall reward or reprove.
And the heartless may wonder at all I resign -
Thy lips shall reply, not to them, but to mine.

Lord Byron

[Hes]

I enjoyed your post Alf, its a long time since I read any Byron.

[Mossdog]

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley