posted on April 19, 2001 03:50:22 AMLinda_K- Thanks for the nice words and the other wonderful poem. I am copying and pasting them to save for later. I have continued writing some, but it's usually saved for auction descriptions!!!
posted on April 19, 2001 10:07:41 PM
This is a poem that one of my great uncles wrote here in Aussie land.
IN MEMORY OF NUGGET
He takes his place at the head of the team,
Like a real true champion should.
It isn't the place for a sluggard,
Up there they have to be good.
He listens for the orders,
That he knows and takes so well.
And I think that if I asked him,
He'd steer me through to hell.
He leads through trackless timbers,
And gullies deep and dark.
To haul the straight sound timber
The blue-gum and iron-bark.
We travel around the gorges
Down many a dangerous track.
And if it wasn't for him,
We may not all come back.
In him there is no meanness,
On him we all rely,
If he disobeyed one order,
How quick we all could die.
A feed, his only wages,
And honesty his creed.
The grand old brindle bullock
That works up in the lead,
Farewell my brindle leader
To you just one last toast
Of all my honest bullocks
I've relied on you the most.
That all our friends were half as staunch
And only half as true
As you old brindle leader
MY LAST RESPECTS TO YOU
He wrote this poem when his lead bullock died after many years as his partner.
Hope you can understand the sentiment and reality of this poem. It depicts the very early days here in Australia.
posted on April 20, 2001 05:17:47 AM
I have another poem/story it is rather long so I will only put part of it here. It is probably the most well known verse in Australia and there would not be many of my fellow county men and women that could not recite this verse. This was written by Banjo Paterson in the late 1880's
The Man from Snowy River
There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses..he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stock-horse snuffs the battle with delight.
There was Harrrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,
The old man with his hair as white as snow,
But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up..
He would go wherever horse and man could go.
And Clancy of the Overflow came down to lend a hand,
No better horseman ever held the reins,
For never horse could throw him while the saddle-girths would stand,
He learnt to ride while droving the plains.
And one was there a stripling weedy beast,
He was something like a racehorse undersized,
With a touch of Timor pony - three parts thoroughbred at least -
And such as are by mountain horsemen prized.
He was hard and tough and wiry -- just the sort that won't say die,
There was courage in his quick imapatient tread,
And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,
And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.
But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
And the old man said, "That horse will never do
For a long and tiring gallop -- lad, you'd better stop away,
Those hills are far too rough for such as you."
So he waited sad and wistful -- only Clancy stood his friend,
"I think we ought to let him come," he said
"I warrant he'll be with us when he's wanted at the end,
For both his horse and he are mountain bred."
"He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosciusko's side,
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough,
Where a horse's hoofs strike firelight from the flint stones every stride,
The man that holds his own is good enough.
And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between,
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam, but nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen."
posted on April 20, 2001 05:23:06 AM
I have a book of poems that I've written over the years and here is one of them..
We had something special - he and I
Stolen moments plucked from our present lives to enjoy.
Precious, tempting caresses with passion like fire.
Unseen and unheard by others
We looked, we touched, we tasted -
We knew--- No future
No Past
It was then
And now it's gone.....
posted on April 20, 2001 05:31:21 AM
oh, god - I'm looking thru my book and I've found another one that you might like.
Hope you don't find these toooooo boring.
Trees and flowers - colours splashed, dotting fields
Cows and horses - frolicking, playing games.
Birds in the trees - singing songs of contentment whilst safe up high.
Chickens in their cages - clucking, boasting of their lay.
Peace and quiet out here on the land
And the stillness ......
of the farm at night.
Yes, the quiet - donates it's time for
thought and solitude
and a certain kind of lonliness...
LONLINESS - man's worst enemy - but
SALVATION for me -
for now.
A poem I wrote in my early married days living on a remote farm.
Please tell me if you've heard enough!!!!!
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by the lonely sea-breakers, and sitting by desolate streams;
World losers and world-forsakers on whom the pale moon gleams:
yet we are the movers and shakers of the world forever, it seems.
Arthur O'Shaughnessy (1844-1881)
sighhhhh, that gets to me. Mom
[ edited by immykidsmom on Apr 21, 2001 11:42 PM ]
posted on April 21, 2001 11:40:07 PM
We Shall Be Free
This ain't comin' from no prophet
Just an ordinary girl
When I close my eyes I see
The way this world shall be
When we all walk hand in hand
When the last child cries for a crust of bread
When the last man dies for just words that he said
When there's shelter over the poorest head
We shall be free
When the last thing we notice is the color of skin
And the first thing we look for is the beauty within
When the skies and the oceans are clean again
Then we shall be free
We shall be free
We shall be free
Stand straight, walk proud
'Cause we shall be free
When we're free to love anyone we choose
When this world's big enough for all different views
When we all can worship from our own kind of pew
Then we shall be free
We shall be free
We shall be free
Have a little faith
Hold out
'Cause we shall be free
And when money talks for the very last time
And nobody walks a step behind
When there's only one race and that's mankind
Then we shall be free
posted on April 22, 2001 12:09:55 AM
A handy quote to make you chuckle and divert your rage when you get the eighth e-mail in 3 days from a buyer "Didja mail my widget yet?" "Didja mail my widget yet?" "Didja mail my widget yet?"
"Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those I had to kill
because they pi$$ed me off."
Mom, "gritting teeth and answering politely as I was brought up to do."
O Jenny, don't sobby! vor I shall be true;
Noo might under heaven shall peart
me vrom you.
My heart will be cwold, Jenny, when I do
slight
The zwell o' thy bosom, the eyes' sparklen
light.
My kinsvo'k would fain zee me teake for my
meate
A maid that ha' wealth, but a maid I should
heate;
But I'd sooner leabour wi' thee vor my bride,
Than live lik' a squier wi' any bezide.
Vor all busy kinsvo'k, my love will be still
A-zet upon thee lik' the vir in the hill;
An' though they mid worry, an' dreaten,
an' mock,
My head's in the storm, but my root's in the
rock.
Zoo, Jenny, don't sobby! vor I shall be true;
Noo might under heaven shall peart me vrom
you.
My heart will be cwold, Jenny, when I do
slight
The zwell o' thy bosom, thy eyes' sparklen
light.
posted on April 22, 2001 03:52:31 PM
Not a poem exactly, but some lyrics by Mr. Robert Pollard that I think are nice enough to qualify as a sort of poetic expression...
Wondering Boy Poet
Dream on child of change,
Throw your javelin through the sun
Pierce the hearts of everyone
Though we push to slave the days
This is not reality,
This is just formality
The cup is only being filled
For a chance to have it spilled
Flowing, just like the days,
Sailing just like the days,
Flowing, just like the days,
Sailing just like the days.
________
I never had one, and I didn't want one, and I don't, so now I do...
posted on April 22, 2001 06:05:47 PM
This is my favorite of all-time, Mending Wall by Robert Frost.
SOMETHING there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
posted on April 23, 2001 11:04:59 AM
I was so angry that I screamed at God, dropped my head in despair, and my eyes fell in a bookmark that was in a book I bought to sell on ebay. It said:
What God Hath Promised
God hath not promised
Skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways
All our lives thro';
God hath not promised
Sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow,
Peace without pain.
God hath not promised
We shall not know
Toil and temptation,
Trouble or woe;
He hath not told us
We shall never bear
Many a burden,
Many a care.
But God hath promised
Strength for the day,
Rest for the laborer,
Light for the way,
Grace for the trials,
Help from above,
Unfailing sympathy,
Undying love. ~unknown
posted on April 23, 2001 02:45:27 PM
The above poem prompted me to write this one, I don not know the author.
When all the world is young, friend
And all the trees are green
And all the geese are swans
And every girl a queen
Young blood must take its course
Every dog will have its day.
When all the world is old, friend
And all the trees are brown
And all the fun is stale
And all your wheels run down
Creep home and take your place there
With the spent and weak along
God will grant you one face
Hippy wannabe 
~^~
