The idea of a Japanese comedian was not only a rarity, it was non-existent.
quote by Pat Morita
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Turning Japanese
Ive got your picture
Of me and you
You wrote, I love you.
I love you, too
I sit there staring when theres nothing else to do
Oh, its in color
Your hair is brown
Your eyes are hazel
And soft as clouds
I often kiss you when theres no one else around
Ive got your picture, got your picture
Id like a million of em over myself
I want a doctor to take your picture
So I can look at you from inside as well
Youve got me turning up, Im turning down, Im turning in, and Im turning round
Im turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Ive got your picture, Ive got your picture
Id like a million of them over myself
I want a doctor to take your picture
So I can look at you from inside as well
Youve got me turning up, Im turning down, Im turning in, and Im turning round
Im turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women
No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder its dark
Everyone around me is a total stranger
Everyone avoids me like a cyclone ranger
Everyone
Thats why Im turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
(think so, think so, think so)
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
(think so, think so, think so...)
song performed by Liz Phair
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Massacre in Nanjing
On a clear winter day you can see from Tokyo
The snow-capped volcanic cone of Mount Fuji.
Towering to a height of 3,776 meters on Honshu Island,
About 100 kilometers south-west from the capital,
The majestic mountain is a staunch symbol
Of the Land of the Rising Sun.
During the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945,
Hirohito's armies invaded China, carrying along
A fascist banner of samurai honor and pride.
The Japanese Imperial troops
Advanced with brutal force,
Committing dreadful atrocities
Against prisoners and civilians.
They reinterpreted bushido virtues and believed
That their war crimes elevated the splendor and glory
Of Mount Fuji to new heights.
Articles published in November and December 1937
In the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun reported the exploits
Of Japanese Imperial Army officers Toshiaki Mukai and
Tsuyoshi Noda, who on the road to Nanjing competed,
For being the first to behead 100 Chinese with a sword.
Okumiya Masatake, a Japanese officer,
Was a witness to the atrocities.
He was a principled aviator in the Imperial Navy,
Serving in Jiangsu.
He was shocked by the carnage he saw in China.
On December 12,1937,
He participated outside Nanjing
In the bombing and sinking
Of the American Gunboat USS Panay
In the Yangtze River.
A few days after the sinking of the Panay,
Okumiya rode a chauffeur-driven car,
Searching for the bodies of downed Japanese pilots.
It was then that he had witnessed
His Majesty's Imperial Troops
Perpetrating gruesome Massacres.
In the streets of Nanjing, Japanese soldiers
Were slaughtering indiscriminately
Chinese men and women, young and old.
On December 25 and 27 of 1937,
Okumiya photographed in the capital
Piles of innumerable bodies of Chinese people,
Lying unburied along the Yangtze River
[...] Read more
poem by Paul Hartal
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Responsibility In The Workforce
What is the work ethic
of Japanese
white-collar employees?
there are three
important components
to the work ethic
loyalty to company
a commitment to quality
peer group bonding
What do the Japanese
feel about their co-workers
and their company?
the Japanese feel
great responsibility
toward company
and co-workers
What moral attitude
are Japanese
employees taught?
Japanese employees
are taught a moral
to work in groups
to think of themselves
as part of a family
What is the Japanese
attitude to failure
in the workforce?
the white-collar executive
is extremely diligent
knowing that failure
or any errors affects
other fellow employees
What is the Japanese
attitude to sharing
profit in the workforce?
all rewards
[...] Read more
poem by Terence George Craddock
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Searching the truth
Nothingness of negation or
Negation of nothingness....
In self, we are the negation of nothingness,
But we allow the nothingness for self.
We allow the nothingness of consciousness
As a perpetual flight of the being.
We exist in self and we exist for self,
In a cartesian duality,
In a latin con-cretum,
When the certain being surpasses that being toward nothingness.
If Jesus did not exist,
the Christians would not be existent,
But Christians are existent.
No one can deny Jesus, as Son of the God,
And say that He is non-existent, at the same time,
As Son of The God,
Because no one can deny something that
Is non-existent,
As no one can deny the real essence of the existent.
The non-existent things are part of the reality.
He is existent in the Christian's mind.
He is non-existent in other's mind.
He is in idea.
There are too many wars for this idea..
Negation of nothingness
Lead to nothingness of negation
In a double negation.
Jesus is necessary for salvation,
Jesus is essential for salvation.
We need to be sanctified,
We need to be better than we are.
Without the assertion of existence,
The negation cannot destroy it.
We have a metaphysical necessity,
While God has His necessity of Himself.
[...] Read more
poem by Marieta Maglas
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Problem of the Idea
The Philosopher:
'The Problem of the 21st century
is the problem of the Origins of the Idea.'
The Idea has driven much
of human history-
a major motivator
many taken together are
Articulators;
Ideas compose all Human Dreams.
But ask what is this Idea
and silence ensues;
ask where is it
in the human mind
and we'll get charts of its activity centers
but nothing about what it is
or where it comes from.
The Scientist:
Well, we don't have to know what a thing is
to utilize it.
We can identify behaviors and integrate
them-
harness them to purpose.
Philosopher:
Sure like the Atomic Bomb. It was built because
we could integrate various disciplines
and make things go bang
without thinking of Consequence.
technical Ideas-too have consequences.
Scientist:
So you would hold up all human progress
until the over-arching Idea comes along
before we act?
Philosopher:
Ah, but note that progress that destroys
the planet is not
progress at all
but only a blind mistake;
one I might add,
that did not have
an Idea or Clue
[...] Read more
poem by Lonnie Hicks
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Honor and Betrayal (Jiangsu 1937-1945)
The bamboo leaves swished in the wind
As Lieutenant Ryouta Takahashi said goodbye
To his wife and son.
He made his way to the port
With measured steps,
His mind thick with heavy thoughts.
On route
To reinforce the Japanese garrison in Shanghai
The convoy set sail
From the Sasebo Naval Arsenal
In Nagasaki Prefecture.
It was part of the 3rd expeditionary fleet
Of the Imperial Japanese Navy
Consisting of a dozen cruisers and gunboats.
Their mission was to patrol the coasts
And river ways of China and to give support
to the landing operations of Japanese troops.
The boats ploughed through choppy waters
In the South China Sea for two days
And three nights.
Upon casting anchor in the Yangtze delta,
Lieutenant Ryouta Takahashi reported himself
To the staff of his commanding officer,
Major Daiki Chinen.
Judging by his name,
Takahashi-san told himself,
The major ought to be from Okinawa.
The lieutenant spent
A few relatively calm weeks
In Jiangsu Province.
But then, on August 13,1937,
The Battle of Shanghai began.
The exchange of fire
Escalated into a full-scale war
Between Japan and China.
Imperial Japanese Army units,
Supported by aircrafts and tanks,
Crossed over the Bazi Bridge in Shanghai.
Hirohito’s Third Fleet
[...] Read more
poem by Paul Hartal
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
TV Guide
i was a television hosting a cartoon,
on early saturday mornings, to take away your blues,
i was your comedian on those rainy afternoons,
giving you a smile in a soothing room,
you were so young with your painted dreams,
an idealistic boy, you wanted to keep them,
i watched you grow and thought 'perhaps',
you'd be the sower with the perfect hem,
i was a television hosting an empty screen,
'cause you grew older and lost time for me,
i was your comedian without a jokes,
for you to hear under you counseling yoke,
you were so young with your textbooks,
stitching useless knowledge in place of your dreams,
i watched you learn and thought 'someday',
you'd have the time to finish sowing,
i was a television hosting a commercial,
while you slept to regain energy,
i was your comedian to help you,
have a laugh and become healthy,
you were so young curled up with your dreams,
in a remedy of blankets you fell asleep,
i watched you dream of a peace that was dead,
but you reconnected it with your needle and red thread,
i was a television hosting the 10 o'clock,
when you were wise and watched the newscaster,
no comedian could entice a smile,
on that evening when they televised the disaster,
you were so young, i saw it drip from your eyes,
sympathy spilled as you calmed your wife,
i watched you pack and thought 'of course',
you'd sacrifice a loom for a country at war,
i was a television hosting a cartoon,
to take away your grandchildren's blues,
i was the comedian on that rainy afternoon,
and enjoyed your smile in that old soothing room,
you looked so young dressed in wrinkles and gray hair,
everyone else grew up, but they wished....
i watched you age backwards, and thought 'you never did',
yeah, you still dream, yeah, your still that kid,
your still that kid.
poem by Jordan Crider
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Tom Zart's 52 Best Of The Rest America At War Poems
SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF WORLD WAR III
The White House
Washington
Tom Zart's Poems
March 16,2007
Ms. Lillian Cauldwell
President and Chief Executive Officer
Passionate Internet Voices Radio
Ann Arbor Michigan
Dear Lillian:
Number 41 passed on the CDs from Tom Zart. Thank you for thinking of me. I am thankful for your efforts to honor our brave military personnel and their families. America owes these courageous men and women a debt of gratitude, and I am honored to be the commander in chief of the greatest force for freedom in the history of the world.
Best Wishes.
Sincerely,
George W. Bush
SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF WORLD WAR III
Our sons and daughters serve in harm's way
To defend our way of life.
Some are students, some grandparents
Many a husband or wife.
They face great odds without complaint
Gambling life and limb for little pay.
So far away from all they love
Fight our soldiers for whom we pray.
The plotters and planners of America's doom
Pledge to murder and maim all they can.
From early childhood they are taught
To kill is to become a man.
They exploit their young as weapons of choice
Teaching in heaven, virgins will await.
Destroying lives along with their own
To learn of their falsehoods too late.
The fearful cry we must submit
And find a way to soothe them.
Where defenders worry if we stand down
The future for America is grim.
[...] Read more
poem by Tom Zart
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Allegany Camp
amazing grace circus camp
amazing grace day camp
amazing grace hallelujah jeremy camp
amazing grace jeremy camp
amazing love jeremy camp
amazing place chalet pigeon forge
amazing race church camp
amazing race games for camps
amazing race girl scout camp
amazon camp dutch lodge oven
amazon camp in sweetwater missouri
amazon cast iron dutch lodge camp
amazon dutch oven camp
amazon lodge dutch oven camp
ambassador camp at lake waccamaw nc
ambassador camp inc
ambassador chalet
ambassador chalet at doral
ambassador chalet wgc
amber bowers
amber camp lazlo
amber pow camp
amberg germany dp camp
ambition camp hockey pro
ambler baseball camp
ambleside scotland school camp
ambon pow camp
ambor island pow camp
ambor pow camp
ambulance bower
amc camp dodge
amc camp movie summer
amc camp summer theater
amc little lyford camps
amc movie camp
amc movie camps
amc north west camp bear mountain
amc pinkham notch camp
amc summer camp for s
amc summer camp for s 2007
amc summer camp movies
amc summer movie camp
amc summer movie camp 2007
amc summer movie camp 2008
amc summer movie camp arlington
amc summer movie camp ontario california
amc theater camp hill
amc theatres summer camp
amcmovie camps
amelia earhart in japanese war camp
[...] Read more
poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Oxymoron
Oxymoron:
fresh fish
*********
JBO:
'The beach at Sanibel... an Arlington Cemetery of shells.'
*
Every suffocated or strangled fish is first given
waterboarding sensations.
*
Fishes more frequently than
mammals or birds are cut open
alive, while their eyes watch
the knifing of others and their
gills struggle for absent air.
Fish cannot scream.
Greed for suffocated fish flesh causes seals to be clubbed in Canada, Norway, S Africa etc., dolphins to be knifed in Japan, whales to be murdered by
Norwegian Japanese Icelandic and American Inuit fishermen, bears
to be murdered in Alaska, untold thousands of fishermen to
be lost in tsunamis,700 Bangladesh fishermen lost in just 1 storm, Thai fishermen working for slave wages, tens of millions around
the world to die of stomach cancer, food poisoning etc.**
What's in fish? unreported Mad Fish
Disease, nuclear toxins a million
times more concentrated than in
sea water, AIDS from unprocessed
human waste dumped into
the oceans, hepatitis, anaphylactic shock, ecoli,
and other food poisoning,
throat, stomach and other cancers,
mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, pbb's, pcb's, thousands
of carcinogenic industrial waste products, and heavy metal sired
brain damage, pfiesteria (red tide) which poisons the fishes
FISH CAN'T SCREAM, FISH TOXINS, FISH STORIES
Are all anglers stranglers?
Dick Gregory: Eating fish liver oil is like eating the filter out of a car.
[...] Read more
poem by O. Anna Niemus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Philosophical Note On Life After Death
Death’s is a plunge into oblivion self
As an extinction of being.
It annihilates sensations and our becoming
To replace them with death's existence,
Life-a non existent death
And death-a non existent life.
As Epicurus said 'When I am, death is not,
And when death is, I am not, '
We can decline the religious afterlife,
As Gonzalez-Cruzzi did,
But we will never be able to understand
Our born life.
We can deny the visions of crossing over into the light,
When we need to believe
In darkness, silence and engulfing emptiness,
Always understanding that the nothingness needs rectifying.
Because we can fall into nothingness, to remain there eternally.
Coming into life can be a re-awakening of self
The real death is “eternal night”, as Swinburne defined it.
Nothingness can be anything positively existent,
But blackness and emptiness
Are black holes swallowing up the victims of death.
Thinking of Edwards' celebrities,
We may imagine a universe devoid of souls, spirits and mental essences,
A universe having an essential core identity
And divisible selves,
Anticipating the nothingness.
'When I die I won't go to heaven or hell
, there will just be nothingness', Isaac Asimov said once.
'That stuff which does not exist”, he wrote.
I don't know if there exists something that doesn't exist, but
All I know is that the nothingness exists because we are existent
In after death to define it as being existent.
''This life is the only existence there is; afterward there is nothing.”
Robert Nozick also wrote.
Yes, maybe 'nothing” may be a state into which we go, never to return
Or may not be, as Paul Edwards said.
Remember that Anthony Burgess wrote that if there is only darkness after death,
Then that darkness is the ultimate reality
And that love of life is no preparation for it,
Light -keeping the life
Darkness-keeping the death.
This rage against the dying of the light is very human,
Light never dies
It may be reborn from darkness
And vice versus.
But this rage may sound like madness.
And Burgess was raging more than ever
Against the imminent arrival of nothingness,
The eternal experience of no experience, in which
[...] Read more
poem by Marieta Maglas
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
An Idea
An Idea can change the world, how many
things can be done from an idea, every piece
of object was an idea, sense the beginning of
time idea was the first thought created in the
mind, an idea is what surround’s every being.
But an idea is still only an idea and it can't be
felt, you cannot touch an idea or kiss it, or hold it,
ideas do not bleed or feel pain or love, an idea
cannot be seen or heard, its created in our thoughts,
but then again an idea can become real. An idea
can be what ever you which it to be, an idea can
be destructive, an idea can be brilliant, I've seen
people get killed in the name of ideas, ideas,
we walk around with a little
light bulb blinking in our thoughts, ideas.
poem by Elenushka Toledo
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
When You Rush To Judgement
You have no idea,
What you've done.
You have no idea...
None.
You have no idea,
What you've done.
You have no idea...
Not a one.
Oh, oh, oh...
When you rush to judgement,
Your emotions are your worst enemy.
When you rush to judgement,
Your emotions are your worst enemy.
When you rush to judgement,
Your emotions are your worst enemy.
When you rush to judgement.
Oh, oh, oh...
When you rush to judgement.
To pass your judgements,
When you rush to judgement.
You have no idea,
What you've done.
You have no idea...
None.
You have no idea,
What you've done.
You have no idea...
Not a one.
When you rush to judgement,
You have no idea.
No idea.
None.
When you rush to judgement,
No one has an idea...
What they've done.
When you rush to judgement,
What one does...
Affects more than one.
When you rush to judgement.
When you rush to judgement.
You have no idea,
What you've done.
You have no idea...
None.
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Honor And Courage
In Japan, they write on rice paper,
In America, we write on the sides of buildings.
In Japan they honor their elders,
In America, we rob them on buses,
And abuse them.
In Japan there is great love for their country.
In America, people are refusing to stand,
For the national anthem.
In Japan, men are volunteering to die,
Without a second thought,
To give up their lives,
To save their fellow citizens.
Oh yes, you'll say, the Japanese are great,
At dying, at suicide missions.
But is that the point?
Shouldn't the point be,
The Japanese love their homeland,
The Japanese love their own people,
The Japanese love their way of life,
The Japanese love their traditions,
Love, honor, respect, courage,
Nobody writes on Japanese walls.
Offenders are quickly and severely dealt with.
Wouldn't you volunteer also?
Maybe not.
Honor, and courage,
Seem to be,
In short supply,
Stateside.
3/26/11 Alton Texas
poem by Juan Olivarez
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Take Me Away
(l. stansfield/aska)
How much hurt can we take
When its cold outside all I can do is hide and pray for better times
Oh how I need a friend to wipe the tears from my eyes
Love is hard to find in somewhere so unkind
When its been left here behind
There is a place somewhere and if youll lead me there
Then we can open our eyes
Chorus
So take me away
So far, so far away
Oh, wont you take me to a better day
Take me away
(japanese lyric)
Oh, take me away
(japanese lyric)
Its easy just hold me in your arms
cause when the world is upside down
We can bring it round
How much hurt can we take
How much hurt can we take
It seems that everywhere although we tried to care
Were just not taking the time
When all we communicate is full of greed and hate
Its time to open our eyes
Chorus
(japanese lyric)
We can bring it round
(japanese lyric)
We can bring it round
(japanese lyric)
There is a place somewhere and if you lead me there
Then we can open our eyes
Then we can open our eyes
(repeat chorus to fade out)
song performed by Lisa Stansfield
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Surprise in Japan - A sincere apology
our Japanese teacher
starts her lesson bowing to us
and apologises for the war
I was rather surprised this 30's something Japanese teacher apologised for the role Japanese played in the second world war
in the Asia Pacific. All the students in this Japanese school in Ichikawa Japan were from Asia particularly China, Korea, Malaysia and Singapore. Many Japanese never felt sorry about the ruthlessness they unleashed on their neighbours but there are some who knew of the real situations and are ready to apologise when occasions permits it.
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Japanese Jabberwocky
Jabberworky, Jabberworky tale
lone night walk on Onitaka
(tall ghost in Japanese)
Shimousa Nakayama, Chibaken
back to the haunted house
- we did not know until told -
where we lived with them
for two quiet years - japanese
jabberworky ghosts - an old man and woman -
penniless - killing themselves
and we were sleeping on where
they had laid, as they bade
the world goodbye, cold like stones,
but did they leave, fly away, jabberworkies?
they were there. the two who kept the days
in numbers, who even foretold my life -
two lives which had ended - or did they? -
telling the living how his life would be?
what a Jabberworky dream it was?
stretching their hands and fingers
into my life - but then how accurate they were -
-i wouldnt amount to much....almost a stamp,
their words turn out to be after 30 years
japanese jabberworkies using numbers
to get to the nitty gritty of my life
and how good their prediction was!
two hair raising japanese jabberworkies
how easy they had worked to tell this
fragile poet he would not have
the numbers to boast about and they had
surely meant the savings account -
japan where when you have no money
your legs and feet cannot take you anywhere
even two jabberworkies who had gone away
from the world were still caught up with
figures - the all important notes and yen
the two jabberworkies - they were discovered
when they were rotting, hadnt eaten for
days. Jabberworkies they were,
numerologist of the excellent kind....
a table like the one you do your word puzzle
only that they have more squares, and each
with a number, criss crossing
numbers, an ocean of life pinned down
to its very penny's worth
the very art that could have seen the
jabberworkies through the cold damp winter
[...] Read more
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
It's that day again
Come one, come all and gather round
hear the sound
the story and tale
let not your ears fail
not now, for this is of great importance
Im not looking for acceptance
but for your deliverance
I must save you from what i did
by this vein i must forbid
you to guard your heart, for there is a lurking evil that consumes the young
an evil that rolls off the tongue
is sweet to hear, sweet to the hear, and dear
on this day on this February the thirteenth do not express
your love for someone until you address
this problem, because it's the ideas that are the worst poison
this is what ruins a person
before you profess that love, make certain
that you profess not in vain
for this is the simple trap that ensnares men
its the idea, the idea of her are you blind it's the idea thats trapped you again
Your LOVE is not true, because you are in love the idea of her
and when weeks pass and trials come... she will concur
that your love was imagined, you loved that way she made you feel
the way she held you and made you feel warm, so surreal
but that's not love, you imagined your dream girl
but fell in love with someone else, only to find that all along you loved an idea
that was the object of your love, this idea you made, let your reality unfurl
see past your blindness and see you never loved her and dont make
the mistake that i made, and dont you dare fake
this love, because you feel so lonely, don't settle for less but wait
for your real mate
it's that day, that day i remember, what not to do
now i come to you
to save, redeem, deliver, and expose this wrong this threatens the life
you need not fear if you guard your heart and trust in Him who can be trusted
your First Love, but do not forget that this world is rife
with that temptation to love the idea of a girl, dont get caught busted
the idea is so much more dangerous than the room, and yet it will
beg your love, as you attempt to wait, don't love an idea that is abstract
resist its power to attract
do not let it kill
as it has done to many before
and will do to more a score
tread carefully my friend, for you tread the ground trod by those who fell
in love with ideas so keep not your heart on your sleeve
but guard it in armor and do not tell
a girl that you love her, when you love an idea, don't be naive
poem by David Knox
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Part II
So, they ring bell, give orders, pay, depart
Amid profuse acknowledgment from host
Who well knows what may bring the younger back.
They light cigar, descend in twenty steps
The 'calm acclivity,' inhale—beyond
Tobacco's balm—the better smoke of turf
And wood fire,—cottages at cookery
I' the morning,—reach the main road straitening on
'Twixt wood and wood, two black walls full of night
Slow to disperse, though mists thin fast before
The advancing foot, and leave the flint-dust fine
Each speck with its fire-sparkle. Presently
The road's end with the sky's beginning mix
In one magnificence of glare, due East,
So high the sun rides,—May's the merry month.
They slacken pace: the younger stops abrupt.
Discards cigar, looks his friend full in face.
"All right; the station comes in view at end;
Five minutes from the beech-clump, there you are!
I say: let's halt, let's borrow yonder gate
Of its two magpies, sit and have a talk!
Do let a fellow speak a moment! More
I think about and less I like the thing—
No, you must let me! Now, be good for once!
Ten thousand pounds be done for, dead and damned!
We played for love, not hate: yes, hate! I hate
Thinking you beg or borrow or reduce
To strychnine some poor devil of a lord
Licked at Unlimited Loo. I had the cash
To lose—you knew that!—lose and none the less
Whistle to-morrow: it's not every chap
Affords to take his punishment so well!
Now, don't be angry with a friend whose fault
Is that he thinks—upon my soul, I do—
Your head the best head going. Oh, one sees
Names in the newspaper—great this, great that,
Gladstone, Carlyle, the Laureate:—much I care!
Others have their opinion, I keep mine:
Which means—by right you ought to have the things
I want a head for. Here's a pretty place,
My cousin's place, and presently my place.
Not yours! I'll tell you how it strikes a man.
My cousin's fond of music and of course
Plays the piano (it won't be for long!)
A brand-new bore she calls a 'semi-grand,'
Rosewood and pearl, that blocks the drawing-room.
And cost no end of money. Twice a week
Down comes Herr Somebody and seats himself.
Sets to work teaching—with his teeth on edge—
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Inn Album (1875)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Na Tian Piet's Sha'er Of The Late Sultan Abu Bakar Of Johor
In the name of God, let his word begin:
Praise be to God, let praises clear ring;
May our Lord, Jesus Christ's[8] blessings
Guide my pen through these poetizings!
This sha'er is an entirely new composition
Composed by myself, no fear of imitation.
It's Allah's name, I will keep calling out
While creating this poem to avoid confusion.
This story I'm relating at the present moment
I copy not, nor is it by other hands wrought;
Nothing whatsoever is here laid out
That hereunder is not clearly put forth.
Not that I am able to create with much ease,
To all that's to come I'm yet not accustomed;
Why, this sha'er at this time is being composed
Only to console my heart which is heavily laden.
I'm a peranakan[9], of Chinese origin,
Hardly perfect in character and mind;
I find much that I can not comprehend,
I'm not a man given to much wisdom.
Na Tian Piet[10] is what I go by name
I have in the past composed stories and poems;
Even when explained to - most stupid I remain
The more I keep talking the less I understand.
I was born in times gone by
In the country known as Bencoolen[11];
Indeed, I am more than stupid:
Ashamed am I composing this lay.
Twenty-four years have gone by
Since I moved to the island of Singapore;
My wife and children accompanied me
To Singapore, a most lovely country.
I stayed in Riau[12] for some time
Together with my wife and children;
Two full years in Riau territory,
Back to Singapore my legs carried me.
At the time when Acheh[13] was waging war
I went there with goods to trade,
I managed to sell them at exhorbitant prices:
Great indeed were the profits I made.
[...] Read more
poem by T. Wignesan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!