Is It Fair by JB Barrington

I live in a prosperous city
Rich in history and heritage and beauty that beguiles
But take a look past the wall and the shops that enthral
For somewhat contrasting lifestyles
If my eyes can see injustice
Surely your eyes can see it too
We’ve all got the wisdom and courage to oppose it
As a collective it’s not difficult to do
I want fair and square just and honest
I want them free from discrimination
I wanna snap and unwrap the reels of red tape
In the corridors of administration
Where the regulators regulate
In favour of the greedy
Where a wave of cuts make and create
More vulnerable and needy
For them it’s a buyer’s market
For I am of the plenty
I’m one big pound sign as they buy my time
Their purse gets fat mine stays empty
It’s the same old theme in the same grand scheme
In the same old day to day
It’s the same fat chance and the same old dance
To the same old tune they play
Now that my children have gone
My boxes and suitcase they wait in the hall
But it’s all about numbers cos memories don’t matter
As the last of the photos come down from the wall
Is it fair that I now have to leave
Just because I’ve grown old and alone
Is it fair that I’m forced to leave behind
My house that once was my family home
I have no family heirlooms
No crystal cut glass or antiques
When death does bereave all I’ll bequeath
Is some debt and more tears to soak cheeks
I wish i could just have that something
To pass down to my next of kin
Instead of sleeping pills and unpaid bills
In an empty biscuit tin
Centuries ago the people of York
Marched to London to have their say
They said they wouldn’t accept poverty
Or inequality
So why should we accept it today?

Teacher assigned a 16 line poem.

:lol2:

Teach shoulda been more specific, I guess.

Distances

Swifts turn in the heights of the air;
higher still turn the invisible stars.
When day withdraws to the ends of the earth
their fires shine on a dark expanse of sand.

We live in a world of motion and distance.
The heart flies from tree to bird,
from bird to distant star,
from star to love; and love grows
in the quiet house, turning and working,
servant of thought, a lamp held in one hand.

Phillippe Jaccottet
(translated from the French by Derek Mahon)

The Oven Bird

by Robert Frost

There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

I have a hard time understanding that poem. And at first I wondered WTF? But then I saw your post in the other thread.

I still can't follow the poem, but now I understand why you posted it.

Well, ya see, Frost got a little confused when he stopped by the woods on that snowy evening when he took the road less traveled. I think I know, and that has made all the difference. ;)

Upon further reflection, I think it's about the passage of the seasons and abruptly switches to a bird coming to realize, to its great embarrassment, that it can't carry a tune.

See, it was singing and then got all self conscious, so it stopped. And now it wonders what to do now that it realizes its singing sucks.

And, being a bird and all...what the heck else it is supposed to do? So he applied for a job as 'poet muse.'

Uncle.

Aunt.

Oh, thought this was word ass. Sorry. It was brilliant though, wasn't it?

I hope it didn't seem like I was being critical of you, Gravdigr. I was taking a shot at Frost, but mostly it was from my own feelings of inadequacy at not being able to do this poetry stuff well. You know, tearing somebody else down so I can feel better about myself. Even if it is a dead guy who doesn't know I'm doing it. And I didn't even really feel that bad in the first place, so it was completely unnecessary.

I don't get that poem, but I think that says more about me than it does about Frost. Or you.

Thanks for teaching me a little about the oven bird.

Poetry is obfuscated communication. :(

Um yeah...it was just joking around. it didn't occur to me for a second that grav might take it as an insult...because that seems far to go and grav has a great sense of jokery. Saying uncle just seemed a 'haha mudderpluckers, ya got me.'

And anyway, I like Frost. so, that was fun. Sigh. I'm starting to hate that oven bird. Damn you ovenbird, damn you to hell.

That's pretty much all it was. No offenses.