Poetry

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

The tiger
He destroyed his cage
Yes
Yes
The tiger is out

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert…. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Carmela Vitale, you won’t have heard her name.
Just a woman from New York who never got a lot of fame.
But listen as I tell you how with brains and guts and grit,
Carmela changed the world a very tiny little bit

Carmela Vitale, back in 1984,
Had the pizza place deliver her a pizza to the door.
But the boxes then were flimsy and they did that thing they did,
And out of her four seasons, three were stuck tight to the lid!

Carmela Vitale started staring long and hard
At the three-legged plastic table she had out in her backyard,
When all at once she cried aloud, “A tiny one of these
Would stop the pizza lid from sticking to the pizza cheese!”

Carmela Vitale, lift up your voice in praise!
They don’t invent inventors like Carmela nowadays.
She was sick of ruined pizza, she had had about enough,
So she went and made a thingy from a little bit of stuff!

She hasn’t won a Nobel prize, they say she never will,
And it isn’t penicillin or curium, but still—
It also isn’t land mines, and she’s surely earned this song,
For the world is slightly better since Carmela came along.

Carmela Vitale, oh raise your glasses please!
Her widget keeps the pizza lid from off the pizza cheese!
So when you enjoy a pizza, spare a thought for sweet Carmela,
She’s the reason that your pizza lid’s not in your mozzarella.

The fragrant honeysuckle spirals clockwise to the sun,
And many other creepers do the same.
But some climb anti-clockwise—the bindweed does, for one—
Or convolvulus, to give her proper name.
Rooted on either side a door, one of each species grew,
And raced towards the window-ledge above.
Each corkscrewed to the lintel in the only way it knew,
Where they stopped, touched tendrils, smiled, and fell in love.

Said the right-handed honeysuckle to the left-handed bindweed
“Oh, let us get married! If our parents don’t mind, we’d
Be loving and inseparable, inextricably entwined, we’d
Live happily ever after,” said the honeysuckle to the bindweed.

To the honeysuckle’s parents it came as a shock.
“The bindweeds,” they cried, “are inferior stock!
They’re uncultivated, of breeding bereft.
We twine to the right and they twine to the left!”

Said the anti-clockwise bindweed to the clockwise honeysuckle,
“We’d better start saving. Many a mickle maks a muckle!
Then run away for a honeymoon and hope that our luck’ll
Take a turn for the better,” said the bindweed to the honeysuckle.

A bee who was passing remarked to them then,
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again!
Consider your offshoots, if offshoots there be—
They’ll never receive any blessing from me!
Poor little sucker, how will it learn,
When it is climbing, which way to turn?
Right, left, what a disgrace,
Or it may go straight up and fall flat on its face!”

Said the right-hand-thread honeysuckle to the left-hand-thread bindweed,
“It seems that against us all fate has combined.
Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Colombine,
Thou art lost and gone forever, we shall never intertwine!”

Together they found them, the very next day.
They had pulled up their roots and just shrivelled away,
Deprived of that freedom for which we must fight,
To veer to the left or to veer to the right!

Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
And never miss’t!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green;
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past,
Out thro’ thy cell.

That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy.

Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e’e
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

Thanks a lot, you idiot.
Thanks a lot Rachel,
Thanks a lot.
Thanks to you my charger’s not charging on my iPad,
Because it’s got used to your iPad instead of mine.
It’s not charging my iPad,
And it’s all your fault.
I hope you’re happy,
Because I’ve told Mum.