Best Hemingway Poems
John Hemingway has died at the age of a hundred and five
It was the luck of the Irish he said that helped him to survive
At the age of nineteen he left his home in County Dublin
And enlisted in the Royal Air Force and was officially sworn in.
It was at the age of twenty-one that he took to the sky
After having gained his pilot wings enabling him to fly
He'd gone to England's assistance in their darkest hour
And he never once gave up even when things turned sour.
He was shot down four times but always found his way back
And defended our skies from a relentless German attack
Their brave defence became known as the ‘Battle of Britain’
But for those brave pilots Germany would have won I am certain.
He flew hurricanes and spitfires in combat during his career
Always facing the enemy head on and never showing any fear
Once his spitfire was shot down whilst on a mission over Italy
His parachute didn't deploy fully but his fall was broken by a tree.
Others called him a hero, but he never claimed himself to be
Often said he was just doing a job for the defence of the country
He lost many comrades on missions it was a dangerous thing to do
John and his fellow brave comrades became known as ‘The Few’.
It's people like John who made great sacrifices for their country
And it is because of their sacrifice we live in peace, and are free
We owe those brave pilots a great debt that we can never repay
How fitting for John that he died peacefully on St Patrick's day.
Group Captain John Allman Hemingway
17/07/1919 — 17/03/2025
Ernest Hemingway
Not a drunkard on paper
Words ending too soon
With loaded gun...he gave up!
elbows on railing.
glass of Tequila to lips
hated him today.
Looking for Hemingway
It is happy hour at the Monterey wharf, I was looking for Earnest Hemingway. I ordered two double shots of Irish whiskey. I put one in front of me and one in front of the empty seat near me.
A pretty woman with dark brown eyes, curvy body and summer dress sat with me. She smiled and she asked me, You always drink with ghosts? The ghost, you are waiting for is on the coast of South America. He don't like Monterey in late May. Earnest liked the tropic in late Spring.
She took the whiskey shot and she downed the whiskey. She smiled at me and she told me. My name is Florentina, a comrade of Mr. Hemingway. We get along, us writer's like to discuss everything we cannot fix. Me and Earnest can drink till closing time and we skinny dip in the Monterey bay after. You can say, we are both foolish and crazy.
I told my name is Johnnie, not as brave as Hemingway, but with enough Irish whiskey. I would be tempted to skinny dip with a beautiful lady.
She smiled, took both my hands, she kissed them both. She gave me a devilish smile and she whispered. I feel the deep regret of things gone and I feel the energy of a dangerous man. The night is young, the whiskey is strong and the sea is cold. Let's make Ernest smile at 3 am. We will be bare ass, knowing a lot of laughter and we shall know great company. Always a blessing to have a friend close when the night is cold.
Once for whom the bell tolls did exist
the playwright and the war journalist.
Wilde had an ego that’s true
but Hemingway always knew
the importance of being Ernest!
Written: May 2015
"your pretty thought does not describe hard life.
It tells your wish. You have to save yourself!
Redemption is the honesty of courage--
The guts to bet yourself against all odds."
The old man grieved because his net of words
Fell on the page, no longer catching him;
And, knowing only what a man should do
With wounded beasts, he kissed the phallic gun.
Hemingway once said
"All great stories end in death."
So do all great lives.
What Hemingway Saw And Felt That Summer
floor, rat eaten shoe
fisherman and lake in tune
dawn, eggs and bacon
Robert J. Lindley, 4-04-2018
Haiku, ( Life, Living and Time)
EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED FROM HEMINGWAY
“Man is not made for defeat.
A man can be destroyed but not defeated”
These words from Papa Hank are true as can be
And so to myself must often be repeated.
No man ever spoke truer words, to my heart
My life lived by what his yet represents
Should I wish to meddle in the affairs of others;
“All things truly wicked start from an innocence.”
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
Reminds me that caring and loving mean taking the step first.
There is no crime in being proved wrong
But judging rightly is the heart’s boon reimbursed.
Of his prose – books have been written, enough has been said,
While most of the world forgets his gift of verse sublime
His maxim I’ve taken as my own – “All my life I’ve looked at words
As though I were seeing them for the first time.”
The parley between author and reader akin
To carefully negotiated transaction
But engagement is primary, exposition a crime,
“Never mistake motion for action.”
“I have learned a great deal from listening carefully.
Most people never listen.” Oh, but I do,
I stilled my wild soul, held my breathe until cold
As my writer’s heart listens to you.
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward,
Some are strong at the broken places.”
So I feel his strength in the frame of my life
As his philosophy my poet’s pen embraces
And there is my affinity, my ties to the quick
To the heart, soul and wit of the man
For “A writer’s job is not to judge,
But to seek to understand.”
Virility of a writer,
an adventure...
you would find,
out in the bush!
For the big hunt
to unwind...
your clock,
in time.
Only to come undone,
and for victory
you had won.
All in full flower...
for a while,
with one big smile!
Out in the deep sea
with the marlin,
or just a bull ring...
you would find.
Anything for a fight!
A true Bohemian...
in the night.
And in your life,
you found much strife.
Just to know you
for your writing...
at it's best!
Are those thoughts you put in
what I once valued more
Or would what I put out
be the end winning score
Did I need your ears
for my voice to become whole
Or would I rather them deafened
words deep in my soul
In my twenties your opinion
carried some weight
In my thirties I listened
but asked you to wait
In my forties I turned
and walked slowly away
Now alone in the twilight
—to carry the day
(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2015)
A boat crafted of rickety wood dragging a clumsy bottom
A briny sea inhales the morning sun
Hemingway is in my boat
Rubbing my weary eyes,
Is that you, I query
Call me Papa, he proffers
With my papers clinched in leathery hands
Did you read my book; I ask?
Not bad, he replies, too many words
Too many, I ponder
Icebergs, pointing crooked fingers to the empty north
Good books are like icebergs
Cold, I expect
No, you foolish fool, Papa spits
Dried and cracked lips sneering
My hope sinks
Shifting like the wind, he smiles
There are no wars in your book
Wars? My story is about a blind fisherman
You didn’t read it, Papa
Too many useless words, and no wars
A good story is of war
And women, whores with ruby lips that pucker like a fish
And thighs stronger than Hercules’ conquest
And rum, lots of rum
And fewer words
Wars, whores, and rum
Can you write that, foolish fool?
With fewer words?
And no goddamned fisherman
I was in a rickety boat made of wood tossed by briny seas
Hemingway is drinking rum and singing about wars
And whores with ruby lips
A big fish comes
The big fish swallows Papa
Fewer words
Years ago
On my way where there is no snow
Travelled over bridges and water
In this place I didn't want to go
I felt this spirit
Like something
Contacting me
Causing me strange feelings
We finally reached
Our true destination
I felt it with some trepidation
There was something in this place
Later
When riding around the island
A residence we found
It was colorful as a cat's lair
Found out later
It was a home
Where Hemingway
Stayed part of his life
(I will always believe that I felt his spirit reach me, that is his spirit of writing. I really didn't know anything about him at that time and when I returned home, I looked up some information about him and got a book that was written by him. I always wonder why I hadn't heard of him before.)
the stillborn baby, gone- then mother too;
wrapped arms 'round my unborn child.