School Poetry: Retrospective - My Beautiful Brother

My Beautiful Brother

The teacher in assembly made a rallying call:

“It doesn’t matter how old, big or small,

A goalkeeper is needed for the school football team

And this year the cup is our ultimate dream.”

My hand shot up, confident of the answer,

“My brother will play and wants to be a goalkeeper.”

Many a teacher’s eyebrow was raised at my offer.

“Tell him the trial, is on the school field later.”

Lucky it was dark; an early winter’s night,

Still coach was surprised when he first caught sight

Of my beautiful brother in his brazil-gold kit.

And then cat-like agility made him the right fit.

He rescued the season and took us quite far

Keeping clean sheets’ he became the team star

And bottle juggling skills, made him a safe bet

With disbelieving looks, this legend kept our net.

We got all the way through, into the cup final,

With my brother’s goal keeping proving quite vital.

All the children, at our school, got quite excited

For now we were facing: The Mighty United.

Our team lined up with my brother on the end.

It looked like a game where we’d have to defend.

Straight from the start, United were on the attack

Causing save after save from us at the back.

Till United were befuddled by my brother’s long throw.

His accurate aim put our striker through on goal.

The ball flew true into the back of the net.

We were one nil up with only five minutes left.

Then the worst: Ronaldo came through on goal.

If he scored now I feared what was to follow.

And out came my brother; a wailing one tooth

With a pink puffy face not yet in his youth

In pampers at the weekend but ready for the test,

He slid in for the tackle and came out the best.

My immense baby brother simply took the ball

My two year old wonder toddling six feet tall

As the whistle went and we’d won the game,

The crowd started to chant my brother’s name.

Putting in his dummy, he had nothing to say

So took my mother’s hand and she led him away.

School Poetry: Retrospective - Careers

Careers

I was a singing sensation.

An international star.

Sang boy band ballads;

Fans flocked from afar.

I was pop chart famous;

A platinum selling record deal.

When I left school,

That’s what life was like for me.

Then I became a wrestler

When muscles made me hard.

Named ‘The Mad Mauler’

I fought through out the world.

But sadly I was banned

For a move called ‘Cut Free’.

When I got bigger,

That’s what life was like for me.

I decided to be dangerous

Become a pirate all-at-sea.

Stealing and a-looting,

Known everywhere as Mad MacDee.

But soon I was wanted,

A big dollar capture fee.

So I abandoned ship

As life got too hard for me.

Now I’m a teacher

With wild lives left behind.

Hoping the authorities

Will think I’m too hard to find.

I enjoyed being a singer

And a wrestler was fun to be.

But now pretty words

Is what life’s about for me.

3 Poems

Rocky Raised the Flag

Rocky Raised the flag
And became a different boy.
From scrubby soccer tough
To new found solider joy.

He marched down the street
with others of a like mind
To face their fanatical foes
To see what they could find.

A good rock held in his hand,
Wanting to hurl it at a tank,
With vinegar handkerchief
For tear gas fired back.

They all rounded the corner
To face guns and armour.
Shots rang across the street
And Rocky fell down dead.


My Friend

Rocky
My friend.
Raw onion eater,
Good left foot,
AC Milan Shirt
Always Worn.
Stole a bottle of milk
For Meetah's mum.
Hated school.
There was a hole
In the toe
Of one of his
Addidas trainers.


Rocky, Rocky

Rocky, Rocky
Lying on the floor
Is it you?
Really? Any more?
The holey shoe's
Come of your foot,
That Milan shirt
Is dirty as fuck.

But one more use
You will make
As a photograph
For them to take.
Hope it will touch them
In the right place
And perhaps change
The way they face.

Between the lines of two children

Tired,
twisted back,
Torn in two.
Riled,
A doubled lack
of desire to write too.
Obliged,
Must find the crack
To squeeze words into.
Tied down
By my little facts
Who do what babies do.

Larry's Helmet

My first attempt at putting some of my poetry onto video and the internet. It is rough and ready as am I, so go easy on me. This poem makes me smile every time I read it.

Keats: The Duncan Edward of his Times.

So the first question is: Who was Duncan Edwards?

Duncan Edwards was almost the best footballer that ever lived. Okay maybe that is slightly biased. He was almost the best footballer to play for Manchester United. Who said so? Bobby Charlton did.
Yes, Duncan Edwards was huge, hard as nails, had silky skills but what makes the comparison of him to Keats?

Both were geniuses. Both exceptional in their fields of talent and for the briefest blossoming time. Edwards played and captained United and played for England before being killed in the Munich Air Crash at the age of twenty-one. His talent suggests he was possibly one of the best players ever.

Keats? Keats blossomed over such a short period of time and then went to his grave at the tender age of twenty-six. He published his poetry over the last three years of his life. He didn't start writing until he was eighteen. His poetic talent dragged him away from being a normal lad about town:

"...Was it a silent deep-disguised plot
To steal away, and leave without a task
My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;
The blissful cloud of summer-indolence
Benumb'd my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;
Pain had no sting, and pleasure's wreath no flower.
O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense
Unhaunted quite of all but - nothingness? ..."

Ode to Indolence

And he didn't do it willingly.

"...For Poesy! - no, - she has not a joy, -
At least for me, - so sweet as drowsy noons,
And evenings steep'd in honied indolence; ..."

But he went on to write marvellous works. The latest movie 'Bright Star' takes its name from one of his sonnets:

"...Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death..."

Bright Star!

In this we can see Keats' strengths of catching the essence of nature and relationships and love.

His masterpieces were Endymion and Hyperion.

Endymion is a poem by John Keats first published in 1818. Beginning famously with the line "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever", Endymion, like many epic poems in English is written in rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter (also known as heroic couplets). Keats based the poem on the Greek myth of Endymion, the shepherd beloved by the moon goddess Selene.

Hyperion was a poem that whilst immense is one that Keats struggled with and ultimately abandoned. Again it is mythic in subject matter, this time dealing with the titans.

The American author Dan Simmons used the poems as stimulus to write his amazing quartet of books called The Hyperion Cantos.

Its easier to sum up Keats by looking at the words of Shelly. Keats was inspired by Shelly and travelled to Italy to live and work with him. It was in Italy that Keats died. Shelly wrote this elegy:

"...He is made one with Nature: there is heard
His voice in all her music; from the moan
Of thunder to the song of night's sweet bird;
He is a presence to be felt and known
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone,
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move
Which has withdrawn his being to its own;
Which wields the world with never wearied love,
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.

He is a portion of the loveliness
Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear
His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there
All new successions to the forms they wear...."

Adonais by Shelly.

Further reading: Keats by Andrew Motion

Movie rather than the book:?

Chilling Out or Spaced Out:Getting back to nature

I had a go at some simple concrete poetry. The leaves were noticed whilst visiting a children's play park in Gijon, Spain and the waves - well down at the local beach. 'Easy Waves' was a game I played with my neice Xana whilst we were in the sea. We stood shouting at the waves and turned it into a rhyme. I would shout a line and she would repeat it. Spent quite a bit of time with my sister's boyfriend and we talked a little bit about the waves for surfing and he told me about wave shapes and what affects them.

Leaf

Each
A tiny Sail
On branches
Joined to trunks
To drive the
World
Around.

Easy Waves

Easy Waves
I don't care waves
I'm not scared waves
You won't get me waves
I'll just jump over you waves
Easy waves that I like.

Wave Shapes
(cheers Javi)

A
Reef
Will give
A definite shape
Every time
Whilst
Sand changes
With every tide
And makes
A new
Wave,
But,
Give me
An offshore wind,
See the swell,
Watch me
Ride.

And then there is the other side to me.

Mason the Fish

Mason was a fish.
At least, he acted just like one.
With his mouth round and open,
Approaching the girls was his fun.

For his salutation,
He's lay on five with a fin.
And for a minute
His round mouth would become a grin.

One day, like any other,
Mason was in his groove
Swimming with the ladies,
Waiting to make a move.

Then a particularly fine catch
Got him on her hook
Wearing bright red stilettos
And fish nets fit for luck.

But as he glided over,
She destroyed him with just one remark
"You're really a little orange fish,
I'd much prefer a big white shark."

But now he's proud to be a goldfish.
Before his style had been all wrong.
Trying out shark moves when really,
He was a little fish in a big blue pond.