I recently was cleaning my lap top files and found an old poem that I regularly used to read when I was well into my expat career . It certainly strikes a few points with me with so I wondered ? any body else ? Its not one I wrote that accolade goes else where .

The Men That Don't Fit In

There's a race of men that don't fit in,

A race that can't stay still;

So they break the hearts of kith and kin,

And they roam the world at will.

They range the field and they rove the flood,

And they climb the mountain's crest;

Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,

And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;

They are strong and brave and true;

But they're always tired of the things that are,

And they want the strange and new.

They say: "Could I find my proper groove,

What a deep mark I would make!"

So they chop and change, and each fresh move

Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs

With a brilliant, fitful pace,

It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones

Who win in the lifelong race.

And each forgets that his youth has fled,

Forgets that his prime is past,

Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,

In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;

He has just done things by half.

Life's been a jolly good joke on him,

And now is the time to laugh.

Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;

He was never meant to win;

He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;

He's a man who won't fit in…

Does not rhyme!

Crap

Its not one I wrote that accolade goes else where .

It's not really an accolade, surely, and glad you've distanced yourself from authorship.

What is with all the <deleted> poems?

I suspect that poem was written by an underachiever with no sense of adventure and a willingness to settle for the mundane, with a secret admiration but benign hostility for his fellow man with more adventurous souls.

When he reached middle aged "mundanity" he wrote the poem to justify his pitiful and uninspiring existence.

I think the poem lacks the grit of authenticity.

I'd suggest revising to replace 'Men Who Don't Fit In' with 'Misfits' and add a few verses around the themes of 'running away from the tax man/police and/or the child support agency.

Wrap it all up with punchy last verse on the theme of 'running away from themselves' and eventually sneaking back home to 'Nanny'.

Men who do not fit in go to Pattaya and Patong where they become the majority and fit in.

I think this may be a snapshot of a Pattaya Men's Swim and Bar Stool Sitters Club event.

Jeez. What a skeptical crowd.

Imagine if Bill Gates and been raised on a farm with no access to a computer, or if Richard Branson had been born in China, or if Wayne Gretzky had gone to high school in Texas, or if Donald Trump had a bald father.

I'm not a fan of poetry at all. But if it speaks to the OP, who am I to say it's no good?

Men who do not fit in go to Pattaya and Patong where they become the majority and fit in.

I think this may be a snapshot of a Pattaya Men's Swim and Bar Stool Sitters Club event.

Pattaya swimmers.jpg

Not quite. That's the Patong Farang Association of Resident Tourists on a recent outing. Us members of the Pattaya branch wear red mankini's.

Let's move this over to the Pub.

Topic Moved.

Thanks for quoting this poem by Robert Service, “Bard of the Yukon.” If I ever despair too much about the hellish heat here in Thailand and long for coldness, I re-read Service’s poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee”:

.

“There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold; …

.

It’s a classic, funny in its own grim Arctic way.

Very good

Men who do not fit in go to Pattaya and Patong where they become the majority and fit in.

I think this may be a snapshot of a Pattaya Men's Swim and Bar Stool Sitters Club event.

Pattaya swimmers.jpg

Not quite. That's the Patong Farang Association of Resident Tourists on a recent outing. Us members of the Pattaya branch wear red mankini's.

Nah, that's the audition for Borat - Amish remake.