“I walked by my-self like a rain thing”

Just reading this list of 500 Most Commonly Used Words in the English Language and I thought I’d attempt to transpose a famous poem using only these words.

I walked by my-self like a rain thing
that flys on high over up-side-down mountain and mountain
When all at once I saw many people
A group, of gold plants;
Be-side the round ground water, under the trees
moving in the wind

Ok, that’s your starter for ten. Can YOU re-write a famous poem or song? Go on, give it a go and add it to the comments.

13 Responses to ““I walked by my-self like a rain thing””

  1. Mike says:

    To make it a bit easier, here’s the top 500 in alphabetical order:
    http://www.chthonic.f9.co.uk/top500.txt

    Pome on its way.

  2. monkeon says:

    no no,
    no no no no,
    no no no no,
    no no

    there’s no end point

    (c) 2unlimited 1993

  3. Mike says:

    They dog-busy your mind, your mother and father.
    They may not mean to, but they do.
    They fill you with the problems they had
    And add some more, just for you.

    But they were mind-boxed black and blue in their turn
    By “special” people in old-world head and body covers,
    Who half the time were week/strong willed
    And half at one another’s air in-take.

    Man hands on deep mind-rain to man.
    It deepens like an under-sea table-like surface.
    Get out as early as you can,
    And don’t have any children your-self.

  4. Fetid Mimsy says:

    At the center of one cold night, as I thought, while tired
    over many an old book and rule,
    As I did near fall asleep there came a sound,
    Like some bodies hand with force against my bed-room door
    “It is a friend” I said, using their hand with force at my bed-room door-
    Only this and nothing more

  5. Fraser says:

    It doesn’t work too well with limericks…

    There was a young man from a country in the south
    Who had nothing at all to do
    So he took out his food, the colour of the sun
    And put it in the back-end of his bird
    And sent what came out to the place where they keep animals

  6. Rhys says:

    This took me far to long

    —————————
    If you can keep your head when all about you
    Have not got their head and say you made them not have their head
    If you can make you think you are right, when all men do not think you are,
    But make room for their way of thinking.
    If you can wait, and no fall to sleep waiting.
    Or be told not correct facts, do no use them.
    Or be no like, do no give way to no like.
    and yet no look too good, no talk like you know too much

    If you can think while you sleep, and no make thinking while you sleep rule you.
    If you can think, and no make think your main top thing you work for.
    If you can meet very good times and very no good times
    And act the same with those two no real things
    If you can hear things that are real that you tell people
    Turned by no good people to make a thing that stop things for people who know listen
    Or watch the things you gave your life to be made no working
    And make them work with things that make things

    If you can make one mountain of all you own
    And try and make it two times bigger in one go
    But then have nothing and start again
    and no talk about that
    If you can make your self go on
    Even When you should stop
    And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    a part from things in you that say “hold on!”

    If you can talk with lots of people but keep your self
    Or walk with people that rule, but keep walking with people that don’t
    If people who like you and don’t like you don’t make you feel blue
    If all men can add with with you, but no man too much;
    If you can fill the minute that don’t give,
    With six times ten of running
    Yours is the world, and every thing in it
    And, what is more, you will be a man, my sun!
    ————————

  7. Rhys says:

    Curses! Spotted a mistake! Change the first two “not”s to “no”.

    There’s probably more.

  8. Friz says:

    Try and spot where it all fucks up:


    Next: a story all about how
    My life did differ, had a complete turn
    Now I will take time, so sit right there,
    I will tell you all about how I was Head of Well Air

  9. RobT says:

    Well there goes the morning…


    I saw a travel-person from a very old land,
    who said: Two very big body-parts made like mountains with no body
    stand in the place with no rain. Near them, on the ground,
    half under it, an old not good face lies, that never laughs
    And the face-part with lines, and look of cold orders,
    Tell that that the person who made it well those great loves read
    Which yet live, and did mark these things with no life,
    The hand that did laugh at them, and the life-heat that gave food;
    And on the base, these words appear:
    My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
    Look on my Works, you Strong People, and feel small!
    Nothing near is left. Round the dark old age
    Of that very large old, not good, thing, clear and with no end,
    The clear and plain ground goes on for a long way.

  10. RobT says:

    ugh. I repeated both “old” and “clear” in the last few lines.

  11. Marky G says:

    Figuring that ‘Jabberwocky’ or ‘The Raven’ would be too difficult I thought I’d try something a bit more basic. Sadly it seems to have turned a hard rock classic into something of an anthem for oral sex with special needs children…

    Special Children Of Mind.

    She has a face that it does seem to me, answer does me a certain – how I see,
    Where every thing was as big as the dark blue air.
    Now and then when I see her face, she take me back to that special place.
    And if I look too long, I would possible fall down and cry.

    Oh, oh, oh, oh, special children of mind.
    Oh, oh, oh, oh, special love of mind.

    She has has one eye of the most blue air,
    As if it thought of rain,
    I need never look in to that eye, and see a big lot of problem.
    Her head I do remember like a warm fine place.
    Where as a children I would come,
    And ask for the wonder of the rain,
    To always pass me by.

    Oh, oh, oh, oh, special children of mind.
    Oh, oh, oh, oh, special love of mind.

    Where do we go?
    Where do we go now?
    Where do we go?
    Special children of mind.

  12. ds says:

    So they’re saying the list of the most commonly used words in the English language doesn’t include the word “fuck”?

    They must’ve asked some fucking polite people.

  13. rewolf says:

    I will tell you everything I can;
    there is little to tell
    I saw an age, age man,
    A sitting on a door
    ‘Who are you, age man?’ I said
    ‘and how is it you live?’
    And his answer rain through my head
    like water through a well.

    Actually not too off but it sounds like engrish. Wakarimasen!

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