(no subject)
I need a poem for my English class. Please read the two behind the cut and tell me which one I should choose. Which one you like better, which would be more interesting to watch my English class try to analyze, etc. Thanks.
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A manger lay trodden with infants and mud
Abandoned completely, related by blood
To a little known savior who turned out a dud
And said, “it’s time that we start a rebellion”
The piano was playing so blue and so mean
That the king sold his daughter when she turned seventeen
When her mother inquired it was blamed on the queen
And the villagers burnt down the castle
The dawn was in mourning, at dusk came a knight
Who was followed by soldiers who never did fight
His horse had no tail, and nor did his kite
And his spirit had been all but broken
The ghosts came in numbers of thousands or more
They let themselves in but they knocked on the door
They haunted the preacher and startled his whore
While they were on the brink of confusion
Trampled in ashes of war came a fraud
Who brought tales of battle through which he had clawed
As he reached for his rapier he thought they’d applaud
But they did not; they’d seen it on CSPAN
The dog had brought hunger from miles around
He took meat from the cattle and food from the ground
They called him a gift horse except when they found
That a horse can be ridden and’s bigger
They marched to the showers in rows of despair
They numbered their papers and cut off their hair
They lived in an attic and bathed in a flare
But the end of the world was still pending
They stole all the stories that children would hate
The thief had it pawned for a much better fate
There were some to discover but more to berate
And a closet of lies still unopened
The guard had been changed and his laundry was hung
His wife had been raped and they cut out her tongue
He breathed for his country but punctured a lung
And his last words are best left unspoken
The country was dying for lack of parades
Its leader was fearless while playing charades
With his board of advisors and four sexy maids
Who said, “Never go out in the winter”
The men set to sea to see what they would find
They foolishly left all their women behind
They cut off their hands so they wouldn’t go blind
Till a storm tossed the boat and they capsized
If you’re hearing this story, you’re barely alive
If your neighbor is drowning, it seems that you thrive
If you’ve made it this far then you’ll probably survive
But I suggest that you find a new planet
===================================
Today is the day I turn eighteen
Today is the day I finally become a Real boy
And you become a scared little girl
Scared that I won’t love you the way I used to
Scared that I’ll become your day-time-daddy and night-time-tyrant
I’ll play cards with Mr. Kowalski and make sure to count my money twice
I’ll stay up late with Wolfgang, Irving and Jimi and talk about music they wrote and I only listened to
The ten o’clock news will be my Bukowski
And I’ll frame postcards to show I’m high-class
Maybe you’re not as special as I once told you you were
And you’ll stay up late at night worrying that I’ll leave you, like everyone else did
But in two days from now I’ll hold you under the security of a tent, under the roof of a house, under the star-studded sky
And we’ll close our eyes and move our lips and let every kiss ferment into something more intoxicating than the chaos around us.
Our hearts will revel in the legends we never chose to believe
We’ll make our own kind of music that won’t be heard by Mozart or Berlin or Hendrix,
Transpose it into every key, and burn the evidence
With every kiss we’ll relearn the meaning of the phrase “inherent perfection”
And realize that while Shakespeare’s love may be the love you want, Lennon’s love is the love you need.
Time will slip away and the night will dissolve into a thousand tiny whispers of licorice-soaked pieces of impeccably packaged perfection
And as we sink later into the night and earlier into the morning, we remind ourselves of what we live for
Your long hair nests so delicately beside my longer hair
and so we no longer acknowledge color
and it’s transformed into a warm place
for birds to make their homes
and for children to make their memories
And we’ll make our every dream come true
For you are the stuff that dreams are made of
And I can’t help but wrap you in my eyelids and sleep forever
And in three days from now we’ll wake up in the park
with smiles clinging to our tender lips
And morning resting on our broken strings
And then you will know that this puppet will never leave you
Sleep well, my dear, cause you’ll never have to loose sleep again
===================================
A manger lay trodden with infants and mud
Abandoned completely, related by blood
To a little known savior who turned out a dud
And said, “it’s time that we start a rebellion”
The piano was playing so blue and so mean
That the king sold his daughter when she turned seventeen
When her mother inquired it was blamed on the queen
And the villagers burnt down the castle
The dawn was in mourning, at dusk came a knight
Who was followed by soldiers who never did fight
His horse had no tail, and nor did his kite
And his spirit had been all but broken
The ghosts came in numbers of thousands or more
They let themselves in but they knocked on the door
They haunted the preacher and startled his whore
While they were on the brink of confusion
Trampled in ashes of war came a fraud
Who brought tales of battle through which he had clawed
As he reached for his rapier he thought they’d applaud
But they did not; they’d seen it on CSPAN
The dog had brought hunger from miles around
He took meat from the cattle and food from the ground
They called him a gift horse except when they found
That a horse can be ridden and’s bigger
They marched to the showers in rows of despair
They numbered their papers and cut off their hair
They lived in an attic and bathed in a flare
But the end of the world was still pending
They stole all the stories that children would hate
The thief had it pawned for a much better fate
There were some to discover but more to berate
And a closet of lies still unopened
The guard had been changed and his laundry was hung
His wife had been raped and they cut out her tongue
He breathed for his country but punctured a lung
And his last words are best left unspoken
The country was dying for lack of parades
Its leader was fearless while playing charades
With his board of advisors and four sexy maids
Who said, “Never go out in the winter”
The men set to sea to see what they would find
They foolishly left all their women behind
They cut off their hands so they wouldn’t go blind
Till a storm tossed the boat and they capsized
If you’re hearing this story, you’re barely alive
If your neighbor is drowning, it seems that you thrive
If you’ve made it this far then you’ll probably survive
But I suggest that you find a new planet
===================================
Today is the day I turn eighteen
Today is the day I finally become a Real boy
And you become a scared little girl
Scared that I won’t love you the way I used to
Scared that I’ll become your day-time-daddy and night-time-tyrant
I’ll play cards with Mr. Kowalski and make sure to count my money twice
I’ll stay up late with Wolfgang, Irving and Jimi and talk about music they wrote and I only listened to
The ten o’clock news will be my Bukowski
And I’ll frame postcards to show I’m high-class
Maybe you’re not as special as I once told you you were
And you’ll stay up late at night worrying that I’ll leave you, like everyone else did
But in two days from now I’ll hold you under the security of a tent, under the roof of a house, under the star-studded sky
And we’ll close our eyes and move our lips and let every kiss ferment into something more intoxicating than the chaos around us.
Our hearts will revel in the legends we never chose to believe
We’ll make our own kind of music that won’t be heard by Mozart or Berlin or Hendrix,
Transpose it into every key, and burn the evidence
With every kiss we’ll relearn the meaning of the phrase “inherent perfection”
And realize that while Shakespeare’s love may be the love you want, Lennon’s love is the love you need.
Time will slip away and the night will dissolve into a thousand tiny whispers of licorice-soaked pieces of impeccably packaged perfection
And as we sink later into the night and earlier into the morning, we remind ourselves of what we live for
Your long hair nests so delicately beside my longer hair
and so we no longer acknowledge color
and it’s transformed into a warm place
for birds to make their homes
and for children to make their memories
And we’ll make our every dream come true
For you are the stuff that dreams are made of
And I can’t help but wrap you in my eyelids and sleep forever
And in three days from now we’ll wake up in the park
with smiles clinging to our tender lips
And morning resting on our broken strings
And then you will know that this puppet will never leave you
Sleep well, my dear, cause you’ll never have to loose sleep again