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******* children can be helped, you say
Your words, not mine; and so I must respond.
Such ideas are phrased differently today;
******* children can be helped, you say—
To use such terms for cognitive delay,
Of this, when young, we schoolyard kids were fond.
******* children can be helped, you say . . .
Your words, not mine. To such I must respond.
PROMPT #15:
take a look at @StampsBot (https://twitter.com/StampsBot),
and become inspired
by the wide, wonderful, and sometimes wacky world of postage stamps.
4d · 22
Tall Tale Told
I’ll tell you-all a tale of Crazy Joe:
How he and his son did a-hunting go
Bidin’ their time till the prey was killed
And every hunter’s dream fulfilled.

Joe saw a dragon in the sky
And loaded his rifle. By and by,
Big Joe shot that Chinese dragon;
Hitched its head to his harvest wagon,
Used its wings to make a plane
Then flew himself to far Ukraine.
He took our taxes, started wars
Raised the prices and settled scores,
Set up bio-labs, armed the thugs
While his son was busy taking drugs.

Joe had barely finished shootin’
When from the North came an angry Putin.
Big Joe whooped that Russian bear
Skinned its fur to line his chair;
Took its claws to scratch his back
Called the whole mess “a cyber-attack”,
Then Joe resolved his son’s affairs
While stumbling down the White House stairs.

Hard-drivin’ Hunter took up art
And painted over that “election” part.
All Joe’s handlers, North to South,
held their breath when he opened his mouth…
Father and son got plenty of press
Down at their Washington address,
After they painted the Whitehouse black
And laughed when we asked for our country back.
Wiser than Solomon was Joe
At taking in the foreign dough,
And cutting deals to line his pockets
Providing bombs and arms and rockets.
Joe talked tough to Israel
And gave those proud Yehudis hell—
But sold them weapons on the sly
While the world wondered why.

Build back better? Come on, man . . .
A Pentagon puppet for their plan.
Big Joe himself: the tallest tale
Administrating massive fail.
PROMPT 12: write a poem that plays with the idea of a “tall tale.”
American tall tales feature larger-than-life characters…
6d · 19
Brandon Afloat
BRANDON cranes his scrawny neck
Sniffing for a business deal;
Sailors gather on the deck
Murmuring with mutinous zeal…

They’re bailing water from the hull,
Throwing ballast off the stern—
Captain BRANDON’s brain, half-full
Of shipping schemes, begins to churn.

Sensing profits in the ocean,
BRANDON observes the cresting swell.
In his faltering mind, a notion
Starts to form, and none can tell . . .

Fearing for their captain’s health,
The dwindling faithful check his pulse.
Sensing oceanic wealth,
His ****** muscles now convulse.

Then, hark—a mermaid’s silvery voice
Appeals to BRANDON from the sea:
Come to me captain; you’re my choice.
I’ll launder money here for free
.

“Man overboard”! the sailors shout
As BRANDON flails upon the waves.
Captain’s handlers harbor doubt—
Yet throw the lifeline. Jesus saves.
"Sewing to Rip"

My monostich unraveled when challenged to have poetic meaning and relevance.

PROMPT #11: write a monostich, which is a one-line poem
ConnectHook Apr 6
Weird wisdom: attractive to some.
While to others, quite clearly, just dumb.
Mystic truth from the East?
Ask your guru. At least
He will sell you a mantra to hum . . .

Western Buddhists: they talk very Zen;
And they placate our Japanese yen
For satori. (and sake);
It’s fake sukiyaki—
The food they prepare, such wise men…

But the weirdest of all of these sages
Is the fake tantric monk who engages
His female pupils
In sin, with no scruples,
And little regard for their ages.
P R O M P T #6 :
write a poem rooted in “weird wisdom”
ConnectHook Apr 4
Through varied ocean habitats
Queer fish, shimmering, roam the range.
Bewildering diversity
To us, on land, appears quite strange.

From Goby to the great Whale Shark,
Their weight can rise to twenty tons!
Such queer fat whales—one might remark;
(but this offends the skinny ones...)

Some are bloodthirsty; others timid.
They burrow, swim, walk, fly, breathe air...
Do not irritate. Leave them placid
To their submarine affair.

Aquatic warning/parting wish:
Avoid the highly venomous fish.
There are more than 40,000 kinds of fish in the world.
Their habitats range from the profoundest depths of the seas to cold lakes and brooks on mountain timberlines.
They show a bewildering diversity in their ways of life.
The smallest of fish is a Philippine goby, less than a third of an inch long and weighing a fraction of an ounce.
The largest is the whale shark, found in all warm seas. Some individuals exceed twenty tons.
Some fish burrow in the mud, some swim, some walk, some fly, some breathe air.
Some are timid, some bold and bloodthirsty. Some are placid, some easily irritated. Some are highly venomous.
One, found in Australian waters, weighs nearly half a ton and has poison barbs a foot long.
Some of the deadliest are among the most beautifully colored.

PROMPT #4
write a poem in which you take your title or language/ideas from
The Strangest Things in the World. First published in 1958, the book gives shortish descriptions of odd natural phenomena, and is notable for both its author’s turn of phrase and intermittently dubious facts.
ConnectHook Apr 4
The shock of nothing new is so surreal;
Rebellion filters down and fades away
In images that T-shirt merchants steal.
The shock of nothing new is so surreal!
Nor Freud nor Marx can anything reveal,
And Maldoror has nothing more to say.
The shock of nothing new is so surreal—
Rebellion filters down and fades away . . .
NaPoWriMo PROMPT #3:  write a surreal prose poem

Umbrella to sewing machine on dissection table: I salute you, old ocean/Breton scorns Hippies/Semi-automatic writing bursts from deviant posers in suits and ties/Euro-egghead Marxist manifestos/Hughes was right/the New no longer shocks/who reads Lautréamont?/surreal like a permanent collection at the Whitney/Breton scorns anarchists/politically incorrect smoke fills café/Man Ray meets Apollinaire at debutante ball/nightclub for nihilism’s fools/Dada’s brooding child/Artaud screams Van Gogh! as they forcibly administer antipsychotic meds/subconscious dreams of inevitable commodification/expect predictable juxtapositions/Breton scorns punk-rock/revolutionary footnotes to an arts thesis/who even reads Maldoror ?/dregs of surrealism sold as T-shirts/waiting-room posters/hip postcards/neurosis celebrated/cerebrated/fetishized/fades
Apr 4 · 43
CHRIST IS KING
ConnectHook Apr 4
RIGHT KISS INC
GR SIN IS THICK
KITSCH RISING
ST NICKS HI RIG
SICK NIGHT SIR
KNIGHT CRISIS
SIN SICK RIGHT
IS GRINCH SKIT
KING **** SIR C
STINK HIS C RIG
HISSING TRICK
STRIKING HIS C
RICK SINGS HIT
RICH GITS SKIN
S RISING THICK
C RISKING THIS
THICK SIN RIGS
ICK HIS STRING
TRICKS IN HIS G
HISS TRICKING
NGH CRISIS KIT
RISKS ITCHING
I STRING CHIKS
SHIRKING TICS
SICK HI STINGR
SINK RIGHT CIS
NICKS GI SHIRT
If you discover more combos,
or if I miscounted letters,
tell me below
Apr 2 · 30
Into Your Light
ConnectHook Apr 2
Poetry, when we first met
(I was too young to read back then…)
Your gifts were gold, and mine the debt.
My childhood was enriched again
And I grew older, full of hope;
I was not yet a misanthrope.

You intimated truths divine
And so I followed in your ways.
Hypnotic flame, I made you mine
To guide me in my dull, dark, maze;
Deep in a cavern, unaware—
Until you led me out of there.

Your lyric beams, whose light is sure
Discerned my unpoetic state.
Shining from realms where thought is pure,
You gave me sight, unlocked the gate.
Some despise your ancient beauty—
Others heed your call of duty.

Loosed from the cave, in sunlit weather,
Freeing souls from those sad regions,
Muse of mine!  We fight together;
Mocking dullness, slaying legions.
You (and Plato) are owed the thanks.
Guide us rightly. Lead the ranks.
write a platonic love poem, not about a romantic partner,
but some other kind of love –
The poem should be written directly to the object of your affections,
and should describe at least three memories
of you engaging with that person/thing.

National Poetry-writing Month
(NaPoWriMo) day 2
Apr 1 · 41
Beneath the Willows
ConnectHook Apr 1
Lost that dull plot so many years ago,
Some guy named Heathcliff, a prim, proper room;
Something dark on the moors portending doom—
(No, wait—that was “Baskervilles”, different show).

A wuthering woman, her savage beau—
A conflict with tradition, hearts in thrall;
Romantic English swoons. Forgot them all
While seeking the plot beneath a willow.

Catherine? Constance? The heroine’s name
Escapes me evermore, and I don’t care.
A Brontë sister here receives the blame

For boring me with chick-lit and hot air.
That’s all I can recall. The novel’s fame
Would indicate there must be something there . . .
PROMPT #1:
write a poem that recounts the plot, or some portion of the plot, of a novel that you haven’t read in a long time.

A poem a day for APRIL !
Dec 2023 · 138
No Sanctuary
ConnectHook Dec 2023
Liberals love them—then they don’t.
And live to help them (till they won’t).
Neighbors fresh from Guatemala;
Salvador or Nicaragua…
Fleeing failed drug-plantations
U.S-sponsored situations;
Where corruption harvests fruits,
Doling out the business suits.
United Fruit Co. on the skids
Allen Dulles’ ******* kids . . .
For Arbenz overthrown, and worse
Our wicked past has caused this curse:
The training/arming of their thugs
Snorting about a War on Drugs…
Inform yourself on how this started
You, so smugly openhearted:
Aid diversity’s expansion—
House them in your sumptuous mansion.
Not to cut your grass, or build
but more to get their dream fulfilled
Since Allen Dulles owns the guilt
Destroying when we should have built
And sending troops to bananeros,
Lauding them as valiant heroes
For repressing Mayan peasants:
Help them now unwrap their presents.
Oct 2023 · 282
Fakery (haiku)
ConnectHook Oct 2023
Fake news is not good.

But there is something much worse . . .

And that is Fake Jews.
Inspired by by Shlomo Manischewitz,
renowned scholar of Talmud and Kabbalah
https://youtu.be/JS84NSDkctM?si=Wo5hXWZe2dXxDEzr
Oct 2023 · 57
Palestinian Limericks
ConnectHook Oct 2023
This feud among Abraham's sons
Has the goyim all loading their guns
To defend godless Zionists.
Prudent apologists
Will not take sides--anyone's.

Ashkenazis are claiming the land
To promote a new Globalist brand.
Though their zeal is Davidic,
An antisemitic
Reaction may soon be at hand.

Unprovoked is the term that you use
To disparage alternative views.
You oppressed them for years.
Now the worst of your fears
Has exploded the Middle East news.

When the terrorist thugs take control,
It's a challenge to see that their role
Is divine retribution;
Such ****** confusion
Should cause you concern for your soul.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/5tPwpjw3JR00/
Oct 2023 · 98
Ecclesia
ConnectHook Oct 2023
Church of Dead-Jesus-on-a-Stick;
Church of hierophant headgear;
Church of mincing around in purple vestments;
Church of get the choirboy in the rectory;
Church of Mary-this and Mary-that;
Church of turn your back to the congregation
mumbo-jumbo move vessels around;
Church of suppress the scriptures;
Church of hoarded religious art
where Christ looks like
an effeminate pink duke;
Church of what's in Vatican vaults;
Church of cut a deal with gangsters;
Church of burned at the stake
most everyone
who wanted to be Christian;

Behold the True Church.
Mother of Harlots and Abominations, etc.
Sep 2023 · 71
Rome 52 A.D.
ConnectHook Sep 2023
Sworn to **** the Church (or at least forestall),
Reviling Jesus, Christians, and Saint Paul,
The Pharisees finally blow their cover.
Things in Rome are starting to boil over;
Vesuvian rumblings portend Pompeii . . .
Judah await their Messianic day—
       But Claudius plans to expel all Jews . . .

Hateful superstitions cloud their views:
Torah with Talmud their rabbis confuse.
Not-so-Abrahamic agitation
Fails again to unify the nation;
Waiting for Moses/Elijah/David
Some expectations are waxing fervid
       And Claudius moves to disperse the Jews.

Zionist riots make the nightly news
Every Roman synagogue now must choose:
Goyim government tells them to desist—
Caesar demands incense—and some resist.
For subversion (or just causing trouble)
Imperial power rewards them double.
       Meanwhile, Claudius expels the Jews.

Failing empire demands what saints refuse;
They wait for Babylon to pay her dues . . .
Forced to pack up and leave, all Israel flees.
No plagues, no Passover, no exit fees.
Like Lot, they had to leave in a hurry;
Enriched by God in interest, gold and worry.
       Now why would Claudius banish all the Jews?

Stand historically in Josephus’ shoes.
Rabbis babble on while Rome’s legions lose . . .
Empires die. It’s agonizingly slow.
You think it happened suddenly—but no.
In retrospect, not different from today.
And History will have the final say:
       Why then did Claudius expel the Jews?
Acts 18:2
And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla (because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome) . . .
Aug 2023 · 114
HP is chatbot-driven
ConnectHook Aug 2023
I do not care to
interact
with chatbots.

What a fake poetry site....
Jul 2023 · 116
G. Stein: Badly Aged Wine
ConnectHook Jul 2023
Gertrude Stein, you unreadable *****;
Lie back in your sty and I’ll scratch your itch.
I’ll water your trough so you can swill
Vapid verbiage till you’ve had your fill.
Your abstract expressions, while short of profound,
Could almost drive me to Ezra Pound…
Roll over in hell. You’re a rambling twit.
I’m Alice B. Toklas-ed, and tired of it.
Roll over, I say. Let them roast you some more;
Demons agree—you’re a well-lettered BORE.
They destroyed the common use of language.
Normal ways of using words bored them.
They wished to use words in a new, sensational fashion.
They twisted grammar, syntax.
                                         (Michael Gold: The New Masses)
https://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/stein-per-gold.html
May 2023 · 118
Itz About MEE
ConnectHook May 2023
Oh oh my identity
You must recognize me
Fashist is bad
We am good
We is genderqweer
We am POC
Whiten mens is dangerous
Bee more GenderRaceIdentity konshus

This are POETRY.
Feel me.
Modernist is a visual artist, poet, and contemporary identity to foist upon others, then complain about when they do not respond correctly. It earned its MFA in poetry from the traditional territory of the Ts’umpa peoples (now Rubber Band of First-nation Indigenous Indigents, Choctaw White Folks of Greater Oklahoma, and United Kazoo Band of Minnehahaha) and Tsoy Tzaw’z peoples (Mushu, Mixed Happy Family Kung-pao). It writes semi-coherent verse about genderfluid alienation, belonging, and inability to write poetry.

Drivel is a queer poetess, spelunker, living caricature, and weekend gynecologist with a private practice in identity-mongering. She lives with her aging but sassy Purple Republican “Mitch”, a friendly 80-pound lapdog. Recent work can be found in Better Not Review, Austin Journal of Berkeley at Cambridge, Cute Made-up Online Journal Name, and in the shredder behind the water cooler in that weird room off the English Lit. department.

Modernist and Drivel team up for an excitingly dull LIVE POETRY event in which readers read from their own work for fifteen seconds and then answer questions for an additional ten hours after everyone sighs.

Modernist/Drivel Dream-team is interested in hearing from ALL writers except those who are not part of disenfranchised communities such as people of color, immigrant populations, native and indigenous people, LGBTQ+, d/Deaf and Disabled, strident psychopaths, non-tertiary people, members of non-dominant religious groups, women, Dreamers, formerly incarcerated women dreamers, white people who seem kinda too white, and more.
Apr 2023 · 163
Multicultural Indigestion
ConnectHook Apr 2023
         The Hostess
Crowned in Afro-tribal headdress,
On her chest a Slavic tunic;
Appearing as a prophetess
Or a schizophrenic ******…

On her wrists ring Irish bangles—
Wrapped round her waist a bright sarong;
On her breast a pendant dangles
Like some Oriental gong.

Multi-kulti represented
As a woman, weirdly dressed.
Every ethnic group is feted
On arrival to the West.


          The Dinner
Everybody bring your dish!
The ethnic potluck has begun.
Afterwards  your guts will wish
Your culture had remained as one.

Foods collide and almost mingle
In the cultural melting ***;
Yet it’s hard to find a single
Way to describe this mixed-up lot.

Curry mingles with Kielbasa
Chinese dumplings, Jello, slaw
Deviled eggs, the odd samosa
Beans and rice, cheap sushi raw.

Soul food, Kimchi, Spanish rice,
Pad-Thai, grits, potato salad;
Gastronomic paradise?
Or a nauseating ballad . . .

Out of many, not quite one—
You bravely burp. It’s quite diverse . . .
But as your stomach comes undone
Digestion goes from sad to worse.

E pluribus to Alka-Seltze®
Groaning in your bed at three:
Let it fizz and hope it helps, sir
Lest you doubt diversity…

I’m Diversity. I am strength!
Sings the undigested food.
Perhaps we all shall know, at length
If global change was for the good.
PROMPT: 29
Write your own two-part poem that focuses on a food or type of meal.
In the poem, describe the food or meal as if it were a specific kind of person.
Give the food/meal at least one line of spoken dialogue.
Apr 2023 · 116
Bad Data
ConnectHook Apr 2023
bangs car in public bonk and Emma Rae comes in for her **** rubdown ****** jerking off with amateur couple deepfucking This amoral massage has got a happy yet ending ******* lessons for Tucker Starr with Nina and Dana Skanky brunette gets her ***** ******* polished Big **** visits a nerds ***** Clever student Lyla Storm gets a reward in the form of ardent **** ****** stimulation Seducing The Cable Guy Cutie Sydney nailed by throbbing **** stepmother Who want a piece of Jordan Ash and Karlo Karrera bang Liza del Sierra on the stairs Sultry ******* Murka and Sunny strip in kitchen and caress one another creating tremors with her **** engulfing Flexible college girl shows her innate *** skills Bathroom ******* Jizzing all over her face Stepmom helps teen to relieve tension makes her honey get spooning from lustful hunk Jade riding the dude until they both Trinity Eva Lovia loves the camera Green and Angel Allwood hot 3way Russian Playgirl is charmed into having raunchy *** I have to drop lots of thick hot ***** Tall Blonde ******* Off Fake Producer Caught by his mom and teen explore bodies Teach My Girlpartner How To Kortney Kane Levi Cash in Naughty Office Skinny guy rams two delicious Punjab ******* in hot ******* swallows **** I Have a Wife Swimsuit Locker Room **** mighty males drill into each gap she has Amateur GF ******* ****** ******* old and young man girl But Anna is determined to keep her job Blonde gal Denisa licks her own ****
FOUND POETRY from: Bad Haiku
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Predatory in superficiality
Full of false dignity
Brimming with self
Loading my mind with puteríos
Esas vaginas vainas

Screaming for objectification
Parade before me:
Televised Americanized Latinas
Projecting pseudo-sexuality
Celebrating vanity:
Controladoras culonas
Dramatistas inseguras

Hyperdramatic gesticulations
From calculadoras dolarizadas
Dehumanizadas
Miami Syndrome: terminal stage
Stares out from their chrome-plated eyes
Calculating appearances.
PROMPT 26:
write a portrait poem that focuses on or plays
with the meaning of the subject’s name.
Apr 2023 · 359
The Cypresses of Delirium
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Through silken waters
My gondola glides—
And the bridge... it sighs


                   Bryan Ferry


Oh for Transcendence to sit on my face
Refreshing my vision with her pure grace.
For that bright vista I’d gladly go blind
Beholding her glory: my daily grind.
I’ll talk to her forests in feline tongues,
Mouth-to-mouth lip service, heart, soul and lungs.
Tropical therapy; her countryside
Where medicinal landscapes open wide…
Then poling my gondola into port
On the waterway of love’s last resort.
PROMPT 27: write your own poem titled The ________ of ________,
where the first blank is a very particular kind of plant or animal,
and the second blank is an abstract noun.
Apr 2023 · 121
Segunda Cabeza
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Vendrá como ladrón, la palabra confiesa
Cuando la novia diga ven, cuidado . . .
No tomes lo santo por el pecado
Pensando con la segunda cabeza.

San Juan la vio bajar con delicadeza
La musa de apariencia turca
Enjoyada, velada en trasparente burqa
Para inspirar la segunda cabeza.

Manoseando realeza:
De los cielos viene tu gran sultana
Aunque ella parece mexicana
El alma floja, la turca tiesa

Contemplando extrema belleza:
A cada cabezón su gigantona
Para cambiarla en la llorona . . .
Ahora tú piensas con la segunda cabeza.

A las domésticas la limpieza
Tentándonos en sus uniformes.
A ellas: escribir cuneiformes.
A ti: leer con la segunda cabeza.

Lo que las chicas tienen sí cura la pereza
Meneando, cumbiando el bugalú.
Nos fascinan; affecta el espíritu:
El hombre piadoso y recto tropieza.

Muchacho filósofo en tu pieza:
La novia se prepara para su prometido.
No seas burro, no seas entumido . . .
Quita del huerto toda la maleza.

Medítelo duro con tu segunda cabeza.
Inspirado por Ruth Ayon
Apr 2023 · 119
Goose Chase
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Opiates are the Religion of the masses

The feathered victims of the pharm
Flock to lifestyles of abuse.
Fowlers pledge to do no harm
Farming that golden goose . . .

Commissions earned, increasing sales
Keep them lining up for meds.
Advertising never fails;
Pills, then meals, then beds.

Hail our nation’s clueless clients:
Cooped-up shuffling drug-addled souls
Victims of inhuman science
And its godless goals.

Lately, massive medication
Sold to help us all relax
Stupefies a toxic nation
Johnson and Johnsoned to the max

Getting Sacklered, Pfizering out
Astra-Zenecaed to the gills
Facts which ought to make you doubt
Waiting for re-fills.

Perhaps you should not medicate
Nor fill the coffers of the rich
When Psychiatry serves the state
its patients to bewitch…
Don't **** the goose that lays golden eggs
Apr 2023 · 49
White Hoodz
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Letz keep it real and talk cosmetic care:
You despise a white blonde—but ape her hair.
You celebrate Blackness, but lighten your skin;
Hate on white neighborhoods. Then you move in;
Blame us for everything, covet our goods . . .
Tell me once again about those white hoods.
Culturally appropriate: hair made straight:
Chemical process of permanent hate.
Apr 2023 · 136
A Kinzhal for Emily
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Come Thee quickly to thy chamber !
As the fainting NATO hums
Reaching late his unused flower,
Kinzhal bees sting bashful lips.

Suitors enter round her Eden,
Count their airplanes,

And are lost in bombs.
Find an Emily Dickinson poem – preferably one you’ve never previously read –
take out all the dashes and line breaks. Make it just one big block of prose.
Now, rebreak the lines. Add words where you want. Take out some words. Make your own poem.

Come slowly – Eden!
Lips unused to Thee –
Bashful – sip thy Jessamines –
As the fainting Bee –
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums –
Counts his nectars –
Enters – and is lost in Balms.
Apr 2023 · 56
XX Tobacco Review
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Smoking Mistress Nicotine's Sister in an upright bent poker tonight.
Upon unzipping her can and lowering her inner lining there is a pronounced initial note of excited unlit tobacco. The leaf is very moist, almost slippery in lubricity and takes the flame like a 22 year-old ****** on her honeymoon. Pack me hard, I want a long smoke tonight, she murmurs as I look for a match. She arches up, desiring to burn and be transmuted into holy smoke. Upon relight, there is a distinct taste of female sweat and pheromones. Initial room note is comparable to that girl at the 10th grade spring dance when you snuck in some apricot brandy. Partway into the bowl, the sophomoric fumblings become more enjoyably experienced and there is a shared sense of tobacco torpor. Deep in the bowl she asks if you will smoke her for the rest of your life. Yes, you answer, breathing heavily.

A smoldering jungle of desire:
Where you discern her smoke, there's fire.
Pulsating tunnel of delight,
She swells again upon re-light.
Her rounded bowl accepts my flame 
Excusing her from any blame
.

After the last spasmodic puff of smoke dies, there is a lingering pleasure which pulsates in the cooling bowl and makes you want to smoke again. I rate this tobacco very highly indeed.
PROMPT 24: write a poem in the form of a review
Apr 2023 · 86
As in the Days of Noah
ConnectHook Apr 2023
If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,
Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold
.
                 (Genesis 4:23, 24)




Founding cities, slaying sons,
Cain's descendants ran the guns.
Gangstas reigned, before the flood
Polygamy, hoochies, vengeance, blood...
Doubtful honor was defended;
Love waxed cold, revenge commended.
Lamech laid the lyrix down:
Bragging boasts from a violent clown;
Clueless at the coming deluge
Staking out his Cainite refuge
Before it all was swept away
In Noah's long-awaited day.
Urban violence, thugs and beats,
Criminals clogging Enoch's streets;
All the glory misbegotten:
Urban legends long forgotten.
Apr 2023 · 388
Landscape Littered
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Despair

God knows them.
They are what they drop:
Subhuman trash
Strewing litter
Fouling creation
Transtrashification;
God sees them.
They will answer
To Him.
Trash is thrown out
then burned.
PROMPT 21:
choose an abstract noun, and then use that as the title for a poem
that contains very short lines, and at least one invented word.
Apr 2023 · 91
Kargo Kult
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Big man him return soon-soon

Arrive iron flying house wing-wing from sky

Great man him USA bring big gun make fire-fire every village

All bad man them punish red-white-blue magic heaven cloth

Him business suit holy roller CIA cut down jungle

Teach fake Jesus make rich-rich many pig many feast

Teach all man money-money

Bringee iPhone 14 big-big tablet great magic picture-box

Many bead many mirror big candy

Firewater sweet-sweet MarlboroBudweiser

Bringee dollar bringee big food:

CocaColaSpamWorldBankDisneyNetflixPorn

Makee island shopping mall many-many

Our people happy fat-fat many big gun

Big medicine make more baby

Now happy island sing big Amerika song-song

All village wait AmerikaUSA return come back

Amerika come again soon-soon
PROMPT 20:
Have you ever heard someone wonder what future archaeologists, whether human or from alien civilization, will make of us? Today, I’d like to challenge you to answer that question in poetic form.
Apr 2023 · 64
Blue Lines
ConnectHook Apr 2023
The worst monsters are REAL.

                         Sword and Scale


A True Crime binge has brought me here
To share with you my darkest fear:

Earth’s eternal curse: the wicked.
Criminals can play both sides—
Guilt may finally be acquitted,
Truth unites when sin divides.

Where humanity is shattered
Thin blue lines have always mattered

Thank the Lord for good policemen. . .
(Women too, let truth be told.)
All shall be revealed in heaven;
Badges there transcend mere gold.

Law and justice light the pyre—
Thugs and pigs deserve their fire.

We, the living, should be grateful
For the ones who do what’s right.
Exposing all the hidden hateful:
Our great duty in this fight.
PROMPT 19: write a poem about something that scared you –
or was used to scare you – and which still haunts you.
Apr 2023 · 74
Abecedarian Prose
ConnectHook Apr 2023
A brilliant choice, dear. Even finer: grand hopeful inventions, jibes, kaleidoscopic lyrics making new optic psychedelia qualify reality. Semitic tribes ululate; visions waver. Xenophilia, your zither!
PROMPT 18:
write an abecedarian poem –
a poem in which the word choice follows the order of the alphabet.
Apr 2023 · 349
Romances
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Idealize them once they’re gone.
Pity is bestowed by victors;
Evening thus recalls the dawn—
Truth revised by truth’s depicters.

Swooning for the Noble Savage,
That comes later. First comes war.
Conquerors arrive, then ravage:
Dominance worth fighting for.

The conquerors, in retrospect,
Describe their subjugated foe
In shades politically correct
(After they’re defeated, though…)

Ambushes and scalps for dinner—
Pretty pictures of the past:
Airbrushed touch-ups from the winner;
Real depictions cannot last.

Idealizing distant lives
While snug inside your comfy home
Is fine; your living standard thrives.
But Gaul had other views of Rome . . .
NaPoWriMo #17 (off-prompt)
Apr 2023 · 224
Poesía Nalgueña
ConnectHook Apr 2023
No quiero culito mierdoso
Con fragancia fea del pecado.
Mejor un trasero glorioso
Con belleza y vida mostrado.

No me gustan las nalgas sucias;
Con olor a humanidad–
Yo las quiero con ricas astucias
Y fragancia de la libertad.
Unos versos piadosos para Uds.
Apr 2023 · 113
Kanaanites and Kangz
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Thou Ethiopian muse of mine: attend.
Now let my words wound souls and after, mend.
It’s time to slay some golden calves and knock
Some gods from off their pedestals. Let’s rock.
(I’d like my veal in gold-dust, with a side
Of injured Afrocentric racial pride.
)

Moses cut an oppressor down, who bled…
Moses buried him in the sand, then fled.
(Every ****** son of Adam bleeds out red.)
Midian offered shelter to the killer.
I hope you like my prefatory filler . . .

Remember in the desert how the tribes
Put up with Moses’ scolding diatribes,
Yet quickly fell for Aaron’s baby bull?
They paid for it, the half and then in full
By wandering around for forty years
And drinking bitter waters (Moses’ tears).
They even whined about his sultry bride;
Not Zipporah—his later, darker ride.
Let Ethiopia rise. She still is blameless
And Moses’ second wife here lauded nameless.

Discerning Israel means: there once were slaves.
Egyptians know the God of Hebrews saves.
Yehudah is no more the chosen clan
Than Joseph is old Pharaoh’s right-hand man.
And who is freed from *******, and who’s not
Should make us pause—observe . . . then think a lot.

Some tribes are pale-faced, others darker still.
And none can claim to grasp God’s perfect will.
Let **** haters rise—and leave the room.
Black racists too, be gone; and I’ll resume
My question: who’s oppressed, and who’s a grifter . . .
And how a curse descends, and what’s the lifter.
Perhaps you are a Hebrew . . . yet, some curse
Is evident in how you make things worse
By raging over long-past wrongs and rights
(Passive-aggressive lovers’ quarrel with whites…)
While Indo-Europeans watch the fun,
All Asia sighs, and prays God’s will be done.

Noah’s second grandson, Canaanite cow,
Oh golden calf, toward whom we’re forced to bow,
You sure can DANCE, and jump, and chant bad rhymes,
Cashing that blank check for slavery’s crimes.
The state commemorates your orator;
Content of character must come later (?)
You crack us up. Pure abomination
Promoted as artistic creation.
Your tag, your name—like ***** sprayed on walls.
Your neighborhood? Wherever garbage falls.
You’re born in freedom. Now you sample beats
Enslaved to violent nonsense in the streets.
That silly slang, new sneakers, dumb fashions
Showcase well your underlying passions.
Egypt’s kings? More like bad dangerous clowns
Revealing thuggish souls in sullen frowns;
Slurring unintelligibly your words
Which leave your lips like Lucifer’s own turds.
You’re laughable in your provocation;
Begging us to adulate your nation.
We must (MUST we?) celebrate your culture
And venerate what spawns from sinful nature.

You say you have it bad, you’re still enchained;
The Civil War unfought and and nothing gained . . .
You claim to be oppressed this day and age?
It seems you’re just excusing childish rage.
Go liberate yourself then, loudmouth slave.
Prove to the world that JESUS cannot SAVE.

Victims exist, others play the Race Card,
And seek a foe to blame when life gets hard.
Or worse: demand race-based reparations
Lining bank accounts with their frustrations.
Such money has been ransomed, in the form
Of public schools and welfare. Bring your storm
Of virtue-signal cries that I’m a bigot;
But spades will be called in spades—so DIG it:
Hope you can keep those Liberals on your side,
To con them as you take them for a ride.
Don’t compromise their cluelessness. Stay woke
To keep us laughing at your ethnic joke:
Ratcheting up the destructive drama.
Hate this whiteness? My reply: Yo’ mama.
For any son can knock up any daughter
Regardless of the racial myths they taught her;
We are one species. Sorry, but it’s true.
(Wish it were not, observing some of you…)

Muse of mine, Kushitic damsel, don’t leave.
You’ve heard me out thus far. I still believe
That there’s a remnant of Man’s fallen race
Who yet can be restored by God’s own grace
Regardless of their smarts, or style, or hue.
Fear GOD and live . . . for such were some of you.
Apr 2023 · 98
Lines to June in April
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Rock on, Rock on, June Jordan; go!
Write on, write on, we feel your pain!
You spit some lines against the Man,
And the Man buys them back again.

And your bad poems become a joke
A poorly-punctuated whine
Insulting readers— and the Muse;
An unpoetic party-line.

The ****** verse you ***** forth:
Makes poets nauseous at your name.
Your screeds are easy to ignore,
And makes one doubtful of your fame.
Napowrimo prompt # 15
Begin by reading June Jordan’s “Notes on the Peanut.” Now, think of a person – real or imagined – who has been held out to you as an example of how to be of live, but who you have always had doubts about. Write a poem that exaggerates the supposedly admirable qualities of the person in a way that exposes your doubts.
Apr 2023 · 103
Miltonian Splendors
ConnectHook Apr 2023
When I consider how my **** is flushed,
   Ere half my days on this sad seat and wide,
   And that foul stench that smells like something died
Filled me with disgust, and high ideals crushed
To wipe therewith my *******, and present
   My true account, lest bathroom-users chide;
   “Doth God review the toilet-paper side?”
I grimly ask. The vent-fan, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
   Either tissue or a new roll. Who best
   Clean their smeared ***, their slate is clean. To think
Is one thing, nature’s urgent call to heed
   Is quite another; Milton said it best:
   They also serve who only sit and stink.”
NaPoWriMo PROMPT 14:
take a favorite (or unfavorite) poem of the past, and see if you can’t re-write it on humorous, mocking, or sharp-witted lines.
Sonnet XIX by John Milton 1608-1674)
it’s Excremental Health Awareness Month!
Apr 2023 · 175
Rapture
ConnectHook Apr 2023
When Christ returns (with the men in white)
to take me away in the dead of night
to my celestial padded cell
I’ll then be far from the noise of hell.

His men in white will check me in
and fix my doses—dull the din;
His angels will restrain my madness
Filling my heart with Christian gladness.
Third of 3 for NaPoWrimo 2023
April 13 prompt: write a short poem
(or a few, if you’re inspired) that follows the beats of a classic joke.
Apr 2023 · 94
Limerick of Illumination
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Though darkness will claim I offend,
I’ll use verse as my means toward an end:
It’s OK to see light . . .
It’s OK to to be right
(If there’s anything left to defend).
Two of 3 for NaPoWriMo 2023
Apr 2023 · 84
Random Couplets
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Devise a revision to revise the division–
let them tremble at this lying vision:
and, like some Antinomian libertine
abuse the grace of Christ and cause a scene
in Jewsalem, capitol of the Gentile world;
the rainbow flag is soon to be unfurled.
Messianic ******* cast away;
God’s own body must illuminate the way.
Tautology thought: theology taught:
Mufti and the atheists all distraught.
Pre-formed references yield
to reformed preferences.
One of 3 for NaPoWriMo 2023

www.connecthook.net
Apr 2023 · 110
Suits & Diplomatic Ties
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

                                                           Joni Mitchell

Fighting their wars in business suits
Blowing up peasant villages
Lying, While the Pentagon loots
Our failing empire pillages.

The wonder boys from Ivy Leagues
Look good on paper, making war
Their covert actions and intrigues
Exhibit what they tax us for.

Patriot boogey-man ** Chi Minh
Was armed by US in forty-five;
Then made the foe as we sent in
Our troops. And some returned alive.

The Dulles brothers, with their spooks
Testing strategies, had a ball
Dropping ****** on the *****;
Earth turned into a shopping mall.

And now, some puppet in Ukraine
(a Chinese laundry for their cash),
Requests more arms. So please explain
Before Crimea burns to ash.

That’s all. Their only long-term vision:
Body-counts— first bomb, then Starbucks.
Spectacles on television;
Do not question Daddy Warbucks.
inspired by recommended read:
JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy
by Fletcher L. Prouty
ISBN 13: 9781616082918
Apr 2023 · 92
Hateful Brews
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Strange brew, **** what’s inside of you...
                                                            Cr­eam

Surrounded by militant forms of Dumb;
To whose next rage must we succumb?
What ethnic-racial god of wrath
Will plunge us in his ****** bath
And wash foul whiteness from our souls
To further ****** madmen’s goals?
YaHuWaHusha (hashtag #hate)
Has henchmen waiting at the gate
Misquoting scriptures, twisting phrases
Forcing words to march through mazes,
Quite assured they possess the key
To set their dark asylum free.
Babylon’s falling. Drain the cup.
Will the real Judah please stand up?
Crowns, purple aprons, boots on feet
Wash brains in scripture. Rinse. Repeat.
Their mind a concentration camp,
Hateful doctrines burn: their lamp
Now flickers, low on Israel-light.
God’s thugs are looking for a fight—
Whoever they hate is a Canaanite.
PROMPT #11: write a poem that takes as its starting point something overheard

Purple-haired woman: your robes look totally stupid and you’re blocking the sidewalk—by the way this is hate speech you know

Hebrew Israelite king: Brother Judah ben Judah, read the scriptures to this Edomite lady
Apr 2023 · 143
Passing Sirens
ConnectHook Apr 2023
So look out sailor when you hear them croon
You’ll never be the same again, oh no
Their crazy music drives you insane
. . .
                                                  
    Roxy Music

A ****** of song, a passing fit
They call to you and no one saves.
And then you loosen— just a bit:
Dopamine rolls in with the waves.

Captain—can you hear that sound?
That song unearthly screaming bliss;
Moaning sighing seas resound
The island welcomes like a kiss.

Breakers rising, cresting, swelling
Bear you towards a bone-strewn lair.
Portals open; warm, compelling
Variations: fleshtones . . . hair.

Your craft will wreck upon the rocks
Though you may live—and regret the ride,
Recalling ports and placid docks;
Oh mariner of the raging tide.

That music . . . let me hear some more!
It surges now behind the light,
Illuminating from the core
A vessel in descending night.
PROMPT #10: write a sea shanty

(inspired by a Greek vase painting)
Apr 2023 · 112
Climate Change Sonnet
ConnectHook Apr 2023
I talk the talk but cannot walk the walk;
My poetry falls in desert places
Failing to bring life to arid spaces;
Verse germinates to wither on the stalk.
I ought to use a better garden hose
And irrigate my plant with finest ale
My new poetic scheme could never fail,
And happy plants would spring from watered rows...
But dull esthetics scorch, and modernism
Reduces my dry plot to nihilism.
And now my muse must pay for all that beer
After she blasts my crop with lyric drought
My sonnet has been overrun, I fear
By weeds, and I forgot what it's about.
PROMPT 9: write your own sonnet.
Incorporate tradition as much or as little as you like
Apr 2023 · 71
Global Deception
ConnectHook Apr 2023
When Jesus hacks the global app,
Appearing on everyone's phone
Rousing dead sinners from their nap
To pay back their outstanding loan,
Then shall we see the Savior's face
and know there is redeeming grace
.

When Messiah addresses the world
appearing simultaneously
on every channel,
every smartphone,
every device,
calling the whole earth to faith . . .

When ALL the clans of Judah,
every lost Israelite,
and all the tribes of Ismael,
with every village of Greater Ethiopia,
all Sinim and every Japethite
heed the Messianic voice—

in that day we all shall know:
Christ has not yet returned.
Happy Easter.
Christ is risen!
Apr 2023 · 55
Smoke Rings
ConnectHook Apr 2023
With a host of furious fancies
Whereof  I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air,
To the wilderness I wander
.

                                    Tom O’Bedlam

Born of tobacco, borne on air,
Heeding the piper’s fragrant call,
Rising, as they lose their form
Circles waft aloft then fall
Shimmering ghosts of dead ideals
Magnificent in their demise
(Unlike most human enterprise.)

Wraiths emerge, phantasms form, mutating, dissipating; organic ephemera swirl and dissolve, interpenetrate in airborne Eros, a pas de deux to the power of three, wherein polylectic philosophy is revealed as a dissolving circle:

Rings must rise. There are fires to stoke:
An unnameable emotion
Mutability in motion…
Pipe enthroned in seraphic smoke.
The glowing altar: an abyss
As coals illuminate the dark
The wicked burn: a smoldering spark
Below the briar’s rim, a hiss . . .
Omniscience, celebrated, burns
To send forth children on the air
While grace eternally returns
Specifically to . . .  everywhere.
Exhaled, philosophy’s sad ghosts
Bow down before the Lord of Hosts.
Apr 2023 · 358
Subjected
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Zhey is to Them as Zhee is to It...
The argument: God got it wrong.
Your singular identikit:
A plural and psychotic song
The selfish language of the young:
Confusion -- that’s your mother tongue.

The pronoun wars have lost the day.
We shall not call you what you wish,
Nor let you serve yourself this way
From your strange cracked and leaking dish.
Freshmen claim to be dysphoric,
Acting merely sophomoric.

We get it. You’re a special kid.
You came, confused, from mama’s womb
With daddy’s chromosomes outbid
By better buyers, we assume.
Have your tantrum—we won’t take it.
Girls are girls and boys can’t fake it.

Regardless how you cut and paste
Or wax autistic at your foes . . .
Reality can’t be defaced
And sin’s rebellion ever shows.
Your gender was confirmed at birth
When you arrived on God’s green earth.

Proud warrior of the gender war:
Change Romance languages, and ***.
Then count your chromosomes once more…
Till Y no longer follows X,
The Lord is God. That does not change
His truth has power to derange.
DYSPHORIC:
adjective; pertaining to dysphoria,
or of being in a state of dysphoria
Apr 2023 · 80
Wokesplanations
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Set your alarms, y'all. I'm mad WOKE.
Order Chinese—send in the clowns.
(General Tso, you know, was white . . .
Africa's in on the corporate joke)
And every lion-tamer frowns.
Sleeping late on Sabbath morning
You might miss my woke-*** warning;
Time for you to get it right.
Soccer moms talked on, inept
Wokesplaining Blackness to the slept.

Hoping lion's would not bite'em,
Lambs were roaring, panthers leapt.
(Lamb-chops are a pricey item...)
Blind-men too, received their sight,
Discovering new shades of white,
As one young sheep, determined, kept
Wokesplaining Blackness to the slept.

War on Whiteness! Dark the night.
Time to dis-empower their light.
Pull the plug on those Caucasians;
Afro-centrify all Asians!
Full-court press, seconds remaining
Final quarter: there's the game
Light-skinned Latins start complaining
People of color hold no grudge;
Whitey look for who to blame.
Take notes, brother. Here come the judge.
Fools held court. The jury prepped:
Wokesplaining Blackness to the slept.

Then— the basketball was ended.
Cross-country skiing now the rage.
Black was under-represented;
Social justice facts presented:
Winter sports now turned the page.
Nordic culture was up-ended.
Pride makes possible all, except
Wokesplaining Blackness to the slept.

St. George Floyd is celebrated
Neighborhoods get burned to ashes
Racist rioters compensated
Whiteness hits the brakes—and crashes.
Mary murmured . . . Jesus wept
Wokesplaining Blackness to the slept.
Stay woke, y'all
Apr 2023 · 309
Woke Triolet
ConnectHook Apr 2023
The wokeness is so deep: they're sleeping.
Clueless legions are on the march . . .
Ignorance has Wisdom weeping;
The wokeness is so deep they're sleeping
Through the harvest, and the reaping.
Behold the view from Titus's arch:
The wokeness is so deep they're sleeping—
Clueless legions are on the march.
PROMPT #4 
try writing triolets. A triolet is an eight-line poem.
All the lines are in iambic tetramenter (for a total of eight syllables per line),
and the first, fourth, and seventh lines are identical, as are the second and final lines.
This means that the poem begins and ends with the same couplet.
Apr 2023 · 206
To that Thing
ConnectHook Apr 2023
Woman, thy nastiness to me
Is like old Nikes on the floor
Where sweat and mildew disagree
And force me to the nearest door
A stench I can't ignore.

Your heart weighs less than styrofoam,
Thy stinking feet, thy scowling face,
Belong in some state nursing home . . .
Free me up some breathing space,
You mean-hair clipped-face gnome.

Lo, in yon dark recliner-chair
How meatloaf-like I see thee slump,
Upon your wide immobile ****,
Ah! Harpie of the greasy hair
Unholy Frump!
PROMPT #3

Find a poem that you like, and rewrite each line, replacing each word (or as many words as you can) with words that mean the opposite.

To Helen (E.A. Poe)
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!
Apr 2023 · 277
Prompted
ConnectHook Apr 2023
The problem you have is you've nothing to say.
These MFA promptings are good for a yawn..
So scribble some **** and then call it a day
Since most of your readers have long since moved on.
Today’s prompt asks you to begin by picking 5-10 words from the following list.
Next, write out a question for each word that you’ve selected (e.g., what is seaweed?)
owl / generator / fog / river / clove / miracle / cyclops / oyster / mercurial / seaweed / gutter / artillery / salt / elusive / thunder / ghost / acorn / cheese / longing / cowbird / truffle / quahog / song
Now for each question, write a one-line answer.
Try to make the answer an image, and don’t worry about strict logic.
These are surrealist answers, after all!
After you’ve written out your series of questions and answers, place all the answers, without the questions, on a new page. See if you can make a poem of just the answers. You may find that what you have is very beautifully mysterious, and somehow has its own logic.
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