Whatever you do, keep smiling.
Be nice to everyone and stand up for your rights.
There are many paths to the top of the mountain
but few of them are on the map.
Keep running, never give up,
and watch out for the seriously weird.
Avoid psychopaths, if you can recognize them,
be polite to witches and warlocks, eschew cannibals,
beware of the hippopotamus in heat,
don’t drink the second bottle when dancing the Funky Chicken,
and only massage someone without
pimples or hairy legs.
Never give up and keep smiling.
It's a hard life, it's a beautiful world, life's a *****,
it's great to be alive, life is nasty, brutish and short,
don’t give up and keep smiling.
Everyone is a guru but ignorance is everywhere,
and don't mix hallucinogens with depressants.
If someone tells you that they're honest,
treat them with the greatest suspicion.
Live to the limits, we're only alive once,
and that's just as well, because
imagine if people you didn't like were immortal.
Keep smiling, never give up,
always hawk to windward,
and never leave your underpants or ******* behind.
Everyone's equal but only the strong survive,
especially when they take from the weak
because what you seize is what you get.
The meek shall inherit the earth,
but the earth that they inherit will be of
poor quality with no mineral deposits.
Party lots, work hard, never give up, and keep smiling.
Don't work so hard you don't enjoy yourself,
remember that the bird is on the wing,
then it falls off its perch and becomes
a miserable pile of feathers and feet.
The fast lane is the best lane
but it's very smooth and slippery
and there are no road rules.
Watch out for lawyers. Seriously.
They put the devil in the details
while their hand is in your wallet.
Everything comes to you if only you can wait,
but this takes too long.
Clean your teeth, obey authority,
except for arrogant *******,
and don't forget that love and pleasure are
most important, despite what anybody else says.
When you panic, other people will panic,
which is good, because
in this confusion, you can make your escape.

Mike T Minehan

I want to tell you that all's OK.
Oh yes, I must confess, things could be better,
but look. There's a whole cacophony of kookaburras
on my patio who couldn't care less
so long as I keep up my largesse.
And my flash friends, the rainbow lorikeets,
those lurid little lunatics, still keep on lobbing in
to lick up all the honey.
Not to mention the crazy cockatoos who want to
chew my bamboo chairs when I’m too slow with food.
So things aren't all that bad, really.

And I could genuflect,
even get down on both knees, to appease
that great spirit who breathes the symphony of trees,
and the murmuring of all those bees and breezes,
the tympani and tyranny of storms,
the heavy, heady scent of jasmine, heaven-sent.
Not to mention the awesome majesty of galaxies and stars.

And I applaud, each morning,
that old crimson king, my Majesty the sun,
who says “Right, we've had enough of darkness,
we'll have no more of that today”,
and then he has a knuckle  with the night.
Of course, the darkness flees in fright again
when it sees that blood-red blaze of light.

It's magic when he brightens up the gloom like that.
He shows me every single day is sparkling, dancing, new.
So there's no good feeling blue.
And remember,
love is just around the corner, too.

At the risk of sounding sexist
I’d like to pay my highest respects today
to the girl at my accountant’s
with the beautiful *******.
Usually the only things that jiggle there
are the numbers on the ledger,
but today a couple of numbers
stuck out for me to admire.
She knew it all added up spectacularly well
as she bent down obligingly
and pointed out where I should sign
and showed me what I needed to see.
She knew and I knew that
capital gains and expenses
were comparatively insignificant here.
Saucy insouciance was the obvious upside.
Of course, I shouldn’t have noticed,
but then I'm afraid that's what happens
when you’re more
of a ******
than an entrepreneur.

Mike T Minehan

When you're a writer, you get invited to strange gigs
sometimes, where usually, the audience is arty farty
or even a bit precious and pretentious.
You know, the blue rinse set.
But I was once invited to recite poetry in a bar,
where I knew my audience might be ******,
or maybe even abusive, and wouldn't give
a **** about writing.
Yeah? Well, I'm a bit of a word warrior, really,
so I didn't back off.
I stepped right in for the fight.

I said straight up that my poem was especially
for people like them who thought that writers are
wishy-washy, woffling, **** weak and luke-warm.
So then I said,
PPPHHHaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrtttttttt.
Very loud.

I told them this was some royal raspberry,
just for people like them,
who thought this was going to be another boring poem.
And then I threw in a few words like, ah, ****, doggy fashion,
finger up the ****, you know, just to liven things up.

I told them what I really thought.
***** You! Especially seeing as how you think poetry’s
some wimpy, bleeding heart, limp **** stuff. Right?
So let's get right down and ***** here.

Which is much more interesting, eh?
And do you know what that says about you?
No?  You bleeding, blinkered, blind-as-bats
broomstick-up-the-arsed, boring, bonehead *******!

So don't call this poet ****-weak any more
or I'll hit you bang between the eyes
and up between your thighs.
I've got some things to say you'd better not ignore.

When it comes to words, I'm a gouger and a biter.
I'm a brawling, hard-as-nails, no-holds-barred street fighter.
I'm a writer.

Yeah, well, no surprise here. That made them quieter.
I'd shut them up. So what did that prove?
I'd just abused and confused them.
It made me think, well, why did I bother?
Poems are for believers and lovers, aren’t they?
They don't need me to fight for them in bars.
Poems just are.
Yes,and some of them might live
as long as the stars.


Mike T Minehan

The staff, who are stuffed full of paper,
stapled, on white,
are to be circulated with minutes,
full of minutiae,
but only the chosen staff will receive such chaff,
intricate, in triplicate,
and the others will have to wait for memoranda,
definitely not grander,
on subjection, objection and rejection
for the weary and unwary.
The brochure on staff conduct
will be grosser,
and superannuation won't be super.
There will be no more staff resolutions,
no revolutions,
so that managers can preserve the status quo
and hasten slow.
Talent is banned,
promotion is underhand,
***-kissing is in,
no sin,
and perks,
no jerks,
are for the executive few.
***** you.

Hello, whale,
yes, you there wallowing
and swallowing crustaceans
with all your calliousity
and my insatiable curiosity.

What a laugh that calf
of yours was
when it frolicked up
to us diverse divers
wanting to be survivors
of its childlike impetuosity
and eighteen foot
preposterous, gargantuan monstrosity.

When you rose up underneath us
I thought you were going to eat us.
You scared me, whale,
when you flicked us with your tail -
the one you splinter yachts with
when you act as Davey Jones' locksmith.

Of course, I retired then
from my dive-in on leviathan,
happy to survive
your forty-five
tonne introduction.

Then you glided into gloom
and sang your eerie song
about your alien, baleen life
in vast, mysterious,
deep areas of oceans.

Good luck along the whale's road,
you mighty minstrel, you diva of the deep.
This diver hopes all humans and harpoons
will spare you and you can share
your song again.
God speed, whale.

Give me succor!
Yes I need a lot of succor because
I went down to my word factory today
and there was no one there.
They just walked off the job!
So how am I supposed
to write anything meaningful?
Eh? Words fail me!

But if nobody gives me succor
and I’ve gotta set up my own Succor Center,
there could be some serious misunderstandings,
like, you better give me some succor
or I fukka you up right now.
Yes. There are people out there like that.
And others who want you to toss their salad
not to mention those who think I said sucker
instead of succor and that I'm asking for
some sloppy top. What?

But hey! I’m not going to stay silent and suffer.
So now I’ve designed a T shirt
with How About Some Succor? on the front
and I’m going to wear this and try to sell these
and see what happens.
I might even get some succor after all.
Or something.


Mike T Minehan

The reason there aren't so many vampyres
around these days is they don't like TV hype
and the intrusions of TV news crews. It transpires
that vampyres prefer late hours and like low light levels
because they're egregarious and don't like to be seen inebrious
in the middle of their heinous, intravenous revels.
Also, unfavorable reviews about transfusions
and the confusion caused by AIDS, at this juncture,
has definitely reduced the appeal of being seduced
by some crazed and gurgling Transylvanian
bloodsucker lusting to puncture the jugular,
or any other available vein again,
especially when you don't know if they've disinfected their fangs
or only licked them after draining their last victim.

After all, vampyres were brought up in castles
when there weren't antiseptics for gargles
and they haven't been taught prophylactic criteria
against such apocalyptic viral bacteria.
And if you've ever seen vampyres with condoms
on their teeth, you'll know what I mean.  
It's a scream. Everyone finds them hilarious. It'd be easier
to die laughing than to go down with anemia.
Also, like everyone else, vampyres hate ridicule.
No-one likes being seen as the fool.
  
And the other reason vampyres are scarce now
is that there are so many genuine muggers, hoods, crims,
druggies, financial leeches, homicidal maniacs,
psychopathic liars and genocidal tendencies to conjure up real fears
out there, that there's not much room left for quaint old-fashioned vampyres, poor dears.  

But do you know something? Even though they were naughty,
I miss their occasional ****. I know it was gory,
but those kisses, oh boy. We got into the femoral artery inside the thigh. It was *****. But when AIDs came along,
that was it.  Definitely bye-bye. Nobody wanted to die.  
These are the facts.  
So these vampyres were starving and they reverted to bats.  
Did a midnight flit,
and that's the end of my story.

You can’t
explain
the world in
Haiku.
It’s more complicated
than that.

If you know everything,
seventeen syllables
are just not enough!

So, I like to
break the rules
and write my Haiku in
eighteen syllables.

Oh ****!
If I ever write
another Haiku,
shoot me
for Chrissake
and put me out of my misery.
There. That’s thirty four syllables.
**** it.
And there’s two more
just for the hell of it.
Now I feel a lot better.
I’m free.

I can’t help thinking
that almost every girl I meet
could possibly, potentially be,
yes, a screamer in the sack,
or better, a soul mate in the sack,
or even a confidant in a coffee shop, or anywhere.
And then they could jointly rule my kingdom
imperiously, like the Queen of Babylon,
or maybe Bathsheba, who was having a bath
when David espied her and then jumped her in his boudoir.
I suppose an exhibitionist needs a ******.
Gee. But it wasn't kosher for David, the King of Judea,
to then have murdered Bathsheba's husband, Uriah,
so he could afterwards marry her.
What? Yeah, this is all in that whodunnit,
the first tabloid, the Old Testament.
But look, I'm getting away from the path here.
What I'm talking about is girls that I innocently meet
without trying to get them in closer.
I don't spy on girls in the bath or the shower
and I don't have anyone murdered for *** or for power.
Or for anything! I'm a writer, see?
I simply imagine, inside my head,
that we all fall fabulously in love,
and blow our minds instead.

Mike T Minehan

I don't have a trumpeter playing the Last Post
and my words forked no lightning. Nope.
Ya know, Prospero could boast that graves ope'd
at his command and yawned forth their dead.
But hey, I never tried that Jesus thing with Lazarus.
And the wine? well, I turned that inta ****.

But I'll tell ya what! I lived. I loved.
And yeah, I hadda few friends. Some even called them bums.
But friendship and laughter and a few beers
are better than all the flim flam of any fly past
or marching bands with drums.

I gave it all away, see?
My soul, and all my being, to kids
and little people. To those in need.
That's all.
I know it's not mighty. And nope, it's not magnificent.
But that's all I had. It was me.

So all I hope now is that just a little glimmer or a glow
might still go on and warm a hand or heart.
I know. You might think it's not much.
But that's OK. I don't expect you to remember me.
Just the warmth and love.
It's yours, too.
It's everything I've set free.

Mike T Minehan

I don’t want the world,
just a mountain and some waterfalls will do,
yes, and a tropical hideaway
with a palm tree or two,
an outrigger canoe
and you.

If only I can find you again.
Where are you?

Mike T Minehan

If only I could write a poem
as brazen as an orange autumn leaf
tumbling along the street,
or sounds like rain
drumming of on an iron roof
or the rich, deep smell of earth
after the rain squall passes,
even the murmur of breeze in trees
and the song of cicadas
on soft summer evenings.
Yes, the single call of birds that thrill me,
or the magnificence of the setting sun
saluting the end of day.
The spin of sycamores
like little helicopters in the wind
and then, of course,
the dragonfly that darts and pauses
so impossibly along the lazy rivers.
And what about the lotus blossom
and the flowers that bloom in billions,
every day unseen?
The hulk of mountains holding up the sky.
The effervescence of the Milky Way
wheeling across forever.
Then there’s the kaleidoscope of colors
caused by a single drop of oil on water.
Smudged mascara after tears.
The majesty of self.
A child’s hand holding yours.
The gift of love.
A smile.
If only I could write these poems.
If only I could write.

Mike T Minehan

I got this awful shock the other day,
yair, that’s what happened.
I was fixing up the wiring in my kitchen
and I sort of crossed the wires.
Got a whack of AC.
Gave me a nasty jolt, I can tell you.
Made me faint and dizzy.

But I also got this flash of illumination
in my head, see?
I know you'll really think I'm nuts, now,
but I reckon I've found out about
the Supreme Being.

Yair, truly,
this Supreme Being is just like electricity.
You can't see nothing,
just a flash of light,
but it makes your hair stand up on end.

I just heard a colossal clap of thunder.
By Jove, it’s great to be reminded that
the din and clamor of our lives
are insignificant compared to those like Zeus.
There’ll soon be rain, and after that,
a glistening rainbow hung out to dry.

Those guys do it big up there in the heavens,
and then they rip the sky apart with lightening flashes, too.
Howzat?
Yeah, an’ then there’s all their galaxies and time an’ stuff.

Jeez, I just love this great big art gallery of the gods.

Mike T Minehan

I met a ****** today,
and no, she didn’t actually tell me.
She kept this tight and was
really shy and polite about it.
But I guessed, because, well,
she's passionate, and trembling on the brink,
like a strung bow, quivering to release,
and she's straining to please her father,
who has the highest standards,
and the rest of her family, who have the highest standards,
and she has the highest standards,
and she's trying to live up to these highest standards,
and her Khmer culture is conservative,
also with these highest moral standards.
Gee. There are so many high standards here,
except for politics and the ****** of protestors
in this country. They're a high standard of
retribution and execution, in the back of the head.
Yeah, culture can be cruel sometimes,
especially in Cambodia.
Anyway, this girl’s trying to keep it together
and, well, there’s so much I could teach her.
But, look. I’m not the one to give her advice,
or to point my finger, or anything else, here.
It’s called the journey of life.
She has to figure it out and fit in for herself, see?
But wow. She's really beautiful in this innocent way.
So maybe you'll forgive me, briefly,
when I think of toxophily, improperly,
not to mention other recreational activity.
But honestly, I like and respect her,
and I appreciate her integrity.
Although I wish that everyone
would just wish her to be happy
instead of all of this responsibility and respectability
stuff about morality and virginity.
And for those who try to keep her in purgatory,
well, I wonder about their own purity. Yeah.
Just a few thoughts on equality
or maybe jealousy or hypocrisy here.
But hey! She's twenty-two! It's her time to be free.
She can still have *** and be pure.
It's called love, see? Not necessarily matrimony.
And anyway, virginity's not for a committee,
this is her own destiny.
Love is the answer.
It's really simple. See?

Mike T Minehan

I’m part of the archipelago today,
just a little island lying around,
with a lagoon and some palm trees,
and here I am shooting the breeze
with you.
So I hope the rest of you islands
out there are enjoying the birds,
maybe an albatross with a preposterous
wing span, some turtles, and a castaway
with a bottle or two.
There could even be a galleon on the horizon,
with pieces of eight and doubloons.
Maybe not, but so what?
It doesn’t matter when you let go
and say Hi ** when you’re
part of the archipelago
today.  

Mike T Minehan

Oh I wish you were here,
in my arms again
like the night you breathed
your last.
Yes, so close to me
and yet so infinitely far away.
So far away, that
I finally knew the meaning of
forever.
Oh my little baby.
I’m reaching out to you again tonight.

Mike T Minehan

I must confess that a while ago,
I wanted to be a superhero, you know,
to blaze like a thousand suns and shout
hello, I’m here.

Yes, you're right, it was a bit pathetic, really,
but you see,  I was afraid of being
just another speck
in the swarm of time,
swallowed up and
insignificant.

So now I’ve changed, and
I just want to say
hello,  I love you.
Love is incredibly more
incandescent, iridescent and resplendent
than all that hero stuff and blind ambition
and all that exhibitionism.

Maybe my spandex suit was too tight in the crotch,
or whatever, but so what,
I now don't feel the need to be a superhero at all.
Yeah, so all of those old galaxies can spin around
and glow in the dark
and wheel through time
as much as they like,
because I’m doing just fine now,
simply being me, right here.

And anyway, love is much more fun
because love is when you don't have to
wear your underpants on the outside,
like all those superheroes.
Actually, and this is very logical,
because when you're a lover,
you don't have to wear any underpants at all.

Mike T Minehan

Innocence.
Integrity.
No fear about mistakes.
Loving.
Giving everything.
Letting go.
No regrets.
That’s all.

I should have said I loved you
a whole lot more,
knowing now the hemorrhage
of time.
Yes, you were really the one, see,
and you had such a beautiful mind,
so level headed in all my lunacy.
I can’t believe that I didn’t do
absolutely everything much more with you,
not to mention letting loose
with more books and travel and
ice cream at the beach together
and lots and lots of conversations
and more of absolutely everything
before the grave grasped you forever.
And forever.
It haunts me that it’s too late now
and you’ve gone so far away.
But your gift is this.
Yes, love and poetry, kindness
and finally, omniscience
about you, your incandescence,
your innocence,
and the enormity
of all I’ve lost.

Mike T Minehan

I thought about death and religion last night,
but not for too long, because both are a bit
spooky, with apocalyptic visions of the abyss
and all the other eschatological stuff
that makes me downright dizzy.
Not to mention all the pandemonium
involved in prophets, punishment and the
tricky process of getting
my ticket for admission through
the turnstiles of the Pearly Gates.
I really don’t like those ticket sellers and their
conflicting claims of heaven and everlasting pain.  
Nope, I’d rather think of temporal things
like children, friendship love and creativity.
Oh yes, ***, too, and everything else profane.
I’m a bit of a ruffian, really, maybe even
Rabelaisian. Pleasure, laughter, loving.
That’s it.
This is my refrain.

Mike T Minehan

I’ve got to tell you,
yes, you, Muse,
that you can be a real little ****, sometimes,
just flirting with me
and merely swirling your skirts.
And I’m so ******* vulnerable!
You hear that? I’m weak!
I’ve been meekly saying yes, yes,
thankee missus, so pathetically obsequious,
while tugging my forelock, or something else,
before scribbling about these ridiculously tantalizing
little glimpses you’ve been flashing me,
just the merest ****** of insight,
when I so desperately need, you know,
the whole ******* vision, the complete picture.
Yes. The whole enchilada!
Now look here.
You’ve got to go a hell of a lot farther than just flirting with me!
I need some of your hot little chilli, see?
Something, you know, incendiary!
You hear me?
Maybe sink my teeth right into your euphorbia poissonii!
Yes!
Even if this ******* well kills me.

Mike T Minehan

Lonely word,
without rhyme or reason,
seeks meaning
and needs a good root.

Slightly faded but still opulent adjective
seeks mature sentence
and meaningful relationship
view long story
beside warm fire
with red wine.

Noun with no hang-ups
seeks juicy verb
for fun times
and swinging relationship.
Let’s split the infinitive together!
Conditional clauses not welcome.

Mike T Minehan

Look here.  I've been admiring the spectacle  
of Ng’s bare ****. Yes,
this is simply because I have to say
Ng’s bare **** is magnificent.
It’s not a bouncing Botticelli but it’s
a slim, firm bottom, subtly rounded,
real split peach and cream stuff.
And Ng at the other end
is a real nice girl, too!
She's my friend, see?

But back to Ng’s bare ****. Let's stay focused.
I contemplate this vision,
along with the meaning of life,
quite often in broad daylight
with a slash of sunlight across her little buns.
This is more profound than the Tait, the Louvre,
the Met, the Frick, the Neue, the Helly, the Hermitage or even
the Natty Portrait Gallery all bunged in together.
Ng's bare **** is also better, by far,
than anything you'll see at the Bolshoi or La Scala.

I’m amazed at how much I’m amazed by
this work of art. It’s awesome.
And I betcha the most famous galleries would
fall over themselves to display this finest little ****, that is,
if the world wasn't so hung up with hypocrisy and hysteria,
yeah, it'd be heaps more famous than the Mona Lisa.

Mike T Minehan

Love.
Of course, the great spirit said that word
when he set down the majesty of mountains
thus, spread curling softness through the seas,
sending little creatures wriggling, crawling, mewling, howling,
oh ye little fish and fowl, doodled up the dinosaurs,
a lumbering jurassic joke, then unleashed leviathan
from just a speck, and made some others walk *****.

Love.
That word we need to hear
and the word that hurts so much.
It comes crowned with garlands, glistening
with the dew of pleasure. And underneath, the horn thrusts up
Dionysius and Venus, processions of Priapus, frenzied satyriasis
blind Baccus, luscious Pan and Zeus.
Ah yes. The juice.

Love.
And who has not recklessly ignored this word
or squandered it on abandoned, neon nights
that paled before the coming of cold mornings,
and who has not held back this word
from loved ones,
cowards of commitment,
circumcelliate, averruncate and absquatulate?

Love.
That little, mighty word that dominates our lives.
But what can we require of life and how can we survive
indifference in the barren waste and stay alive outside
without its whisper, without its cry and shout? And how can we aspire
to ecstasy without the tumult and whirlwind of its desire,
without its warmth, without its fire? So, we must turn again
to love's softness and love's pain. Again. And yet again.

Love.
It's easy, really. So go on, say it.  
It's time. Why not?  It's for the mothers and the lovers,
the fathers, it's for all the children who blindly seek.
It's for the teenagers and trembling old and the outcast and the isolate.
Even the soldier with the gun. Especially. It's for everyone.
The grave is lonely, deep and cold. By giving love before it's too late
those soft wings of the dove of peace unfold.
Love is the playmate. Enjoy, reciprocate.
This is the message I communicate.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
I failed to tell you that I loved you,
and let me count how many times
I forgot to say you were
the most beautiful person
in my world.
Oh my darling baby,
when you were dying
in my arms,
you could only just hear
my hoarse, desperate voice, too late,
and now, for all of eternity,
the grave grasps you in silence.
In my hell, I shall but love thee better after death.

Mike T Minehan

Lust got hold of me
the other day.
Grabbed me by the tongue and the ear,
then moved on down.
It’s not as elegant as love,
perhaps, but
sometimes lust just
consumes me
and completely blows
my mind. And yes,
I end up teetering on the edge of
lewdness, which is a very intense place
on which to teeter. In fact,
I've found that a bit of unbridled lust
is a wonderful prelude to love,
and I don’t feel guilty in the slightest
about teetering while being unbridled.
You can always bridle yourself up later.
So there!

My hometown was rough
because teddy boys and mods and rockers
off the cargo ships from Glasgow and the docks
and slums of England rocked the streets
and knocked the local toughs
out silly with their knuckledusters.
They also slashed them with their razors and their chains.
Yeah, but my friends and I had a revolver
when we were kids
and we used to try and shoot out streetlights
on dark and stormy nights.
We missed, but we could have shot
those boaties close up for all their street frights and
all their ****** peccadilloes like ******* local girls
and leaving a league of nations in their wake.
We didn't pull the trigger there,
but they shouldn’t have got away with snickering
among themselves that they could
pull girls’ knickers down when they wanted,
and scare us with their their flick knives.
We let them get away with thinking
we were easy pickings
in that small town where I was born.
But it’s just as well, really.
I'm glad we didn't take their lives.  

Mike T Minehan

Now look.  Frankly,
I never actually sold my soul.
I just, well, sort of, you know,
leased it out. Cash flow.
That was it, necessity.
But hey! I still kept my integrity,
I think.

My soul was really important, see?
But strangely,
not everyone else agreed and
it was kicked around a bit
and trampled on
indiscriminately!

So I learned a lot about my soul
and took it back.
Now I give it away for free.
Absolutely.
That’s me.

I have this sobriquet,
some say,
of being a naughty poet.
But why should what’s there, underneath us,
be figuratively beneath us, and shouldn’t it
more frequently come between us?

That’s my ethos
about the penoth
and the clitoroth
and the propagation of the spethoth.

Now the cuttlefish
is a curious little critter,
not above shenanigans
because these naughty little things
indulge in oral ***.
What? Well, yes,
the male pops his hectocotylus
into the female’s mouth
and halleluja, does his thing
right there, without shame
or any ignobleness.
And the female?
Well, she doesn’t waste or swallow this
although she goes round other males
and solicits more deposits
for her clutch. Yes, her little clutch!
Eh? Such wantonness!
Really. But this precociousness
is just the way they like it
and shows us
there are many different ways
to indulge in coitus.
Yeah, just simply liking lots of hectocotylus
right down to, but properly,
stopping short of her esophagus.
Without any further apophasis
Obviously, nature thinks that this is efficacious,

Mike T Minehan

Poor little octopus.
Big head and eight tentacles
but no *****, ***** or testicles.

What's that, you say? Then how do these poor little cephalopods
buck such terrible odds when they feel like a ****** agenda
and they don't have any pudenda?

Well, it's quite simple, really. He hands her ***** on a tentacle
and what do you suppose?
She says, thank you very much, and sticks it up her nose!

Honest. No dinner first or shoulder massage,
she just whacks it up her nasal passage. You can be quite sure
this is an amazing olfactory aperture.

So the moral is, don't complicate a simple process.
When you're feeling frisky, *** need not be tricky.
Just consider the inventiveness of the octopus with no ***** or a *******.

Because it's the ingenuity of the octopus, not it's ****** act,
that we should court. Compared to the octopus,
the human nose is naught.
It's too high up and tight for such naughty, wicked sport.  

Also, such a human act is fraught with political incorrectness.  
A gentleman who tries this little rort to get the girls to snort
and says, up your nostril, madam, might all too well
receive a rude retort. Or even worse!

I say herein lies food for thought.
                                                        ­                             Mike T Minehan

I speak in praise of the *******, yes,
and as a male, I decline to be clandestine about this.
The reason I so admire the ******* is that it's the female's key
to being multiply *******, and frankly, I'm in awe of this.

You see, the male ***** can't compare
because, of course, it has a dual purpose.  
It wasn't put there just for bliss,
which is the only purpose of the *******.

Males must just resign
themselves to their dangling ganglia, the ****,
which is so easy to malign compared to the delicate paradigm
of the **** and its remarkable economy of design.

Now I realize that females may be suspicious
of my focus on their *******
but actually, I think it’s ingenious.  
My own discovery of this was serendipitous and propitious.

You see? Really, I’m envious of the *******
because it's indefatigable and delectable,
(I think she likes a little nibble),
and anyway, there’s not much point in trying to distinguish
between ******* and the *******.

So there's my poem to the little ****
with admiration and respect.
I speak in praise of the *******.
Truly. A gift for all of us.

I must state right at the outset
that I’ve never actually been
on a female poet
or even underneath or inside one.
But I thought about this
seriously
at a poetry reading once
when a particularly sensitive
and gentle girl read her poetry
and I wondered how well
the delicacy of her ideas
and subtlety of her poem
would translate into
the carnal and profane.

It was sensuous to think about this
and savor some wine
with her afterwards.
I felt distinctly like
a priapic, dangerous Dionysius,
or a satyr sizing up a nymph.

But I licked my lips and
said I liked her poem,  
then I knocked off the wine instead.

So let's have a night of poetry and wine.
Let's bare the soul
and lust with artistry.
Shut the doors,
light the fires and
let the truth roam free.
I want to feel it's tongue
search deep
in you and me.

They're a funny lot, some of these poets,
feisty feminists, dreamers, anti-money,
and even some who are very self-defecating
about themselves.
And then there's the literary, learned allusion lot,
and some who've got their eye on eternity, that's what,
and others who rub too much turps on the **** of their imagination.

But it's the long-winded poets who make me squirm,
and for god’s sake, give me a bottle of red wine when the ones
with blue-rinse hair get up to have their turn.
They're terribly nice, but they need an echidna
stuffed right up you know where - at least once, if not twice.

And give me another bottle of the red, even if it's rough,
or better still a whole case of that stuff,
just to protect me from those who bleed too much in poems.
Psychoanalytic stuff makes me paralytic
and I have to stifle groans.

But most of all, I like the poets with their tongues on fire,
the ones who lick lightening before they write
and who throw a sizzling poem down
like a thunderbolt from Zeus.

I like poems marsh mellow soft and bitter-sweet, too,
and those oozing with the juice. And if a poem's loud and flash,
so what? I like a bit of swagger, with shameless **** and ***.
And sometimes, I just like words that rhyme with licorice,
Dionysius, Priapus, Bacchus and preposterous!

Also, what the ****, a poem can even give offense.
Poets sometimes need to do this to stop indifference.
They call this poet's license, but really,
indifference is the only hell from which
us poets need deliverance.

No, no, I haven’t been doing this myself,
but I live in Cambodia,
and 2 guys and a girl were deported recently
for riding around on a motorbike in the ****
in broad daylight. Actually, you see,
naively or deliberately,
they rode right past a police station.
Now that must have been a sight for sore eyes.
So the police set out in hot pursuit,
rubbing their sore eyes, or whatever they rub,
maybe their truncheons, eh?
And when the perps were pulled over,
the cops didn’t fall about with hilarity
when these riders said quite calmly
that they were going to pick up their laundry.
Truly! They were backpackers! As if that explained it.
But publicly, the cops said nope,
these perps are obscene to be seen like this
and they violate Khmer customs and culture.
The cops even took pictures of this outrageous obscenity.
Indeed. The riders' rapture of being bare assed
and naked and **** free is not for Cambodia.
Certainly not at this juncture.
So their capture resulted in them being deported,
never to show hide nor hair in the country again.
Just goes to show...
But you can get away with ****** here,
particularly shooting union leaders or critics or protestors,
or you can throw a grenade into the opposition,
and **** a few right there. Those killers go free.
It's probably dangerous to speak openly,
but I don't think these guys read poetry.
They're probably busy oiling their artillery,
and even rocket launchers, as the PM
threatened to use against the opposition recently.
Seriously.
They're on the lookout for dissenters here.
Oh yes. And bare *****. Obviously.
So watch you **** in Cambodia,
especially if it's bare on a bike.
And ssshhh! Watch out for your mouth.
You need to cover your mouth up properly, too.

Mike T Minehan

Today, I’m sharpening arrows
to aim them at
politicians with snouts in the trough,
clerics who preach peace for themselves
but hatred about others,
academics who promote freedom of speech
but run a Gulag Archipelago
for those who don’t follow their own ideas
or buy their textbooks,
hypocrites everywhere,
celebrities in general,
people who don’t smile,
people who aren’t nice,
(why are they here?)
fanatics, tyrants and power mongers,
(there are a humungous lot of these)
boring people,
(they wouldn’t be boring
if they could just try to engage a little more)
and those who block supermarket isles
with their trolleys while they stop and gossip.
I’d really like to put a few arrows in their butts
to puncture their pretensions and hear
the subsequent hiss of preciousness
unless they sincerely promise
to be more considerate
and try to love a whole lot more.
Now. I don't insist they have to love prodigiously,
but I reckon they could lighten the **** up
just a little, and try to laugh more frequently.
That's all.

Mike T Minehan

A kind of lazy angel
swooped by one day
when I was skydancing carefully
on the corrugated roof of cirrocumulus,
minding my own business
and that of the world's,
supervising the sun
and the rinsed-clean fresh air
up there where blue was invented.

The angel showed me how to boogie-dance,
then flashed past and was gone,
leaving only laughter behind
and my admiration
for his easy grace.
You know, loose, with flow.

I was surprised at how easy it really was
to smoke on down in a delta
and dock with triple diamonds
by way of stair steps and a star
to flare it into snowflakes
and a teardrop.
Yeah.  What that angel showed me
was a head trip I'd always known.
But I simply hadn't been there,
on my own.

Ordinary people, bound by ground,
haven’t caught my act in the atmosphere.
But I don't really care -
I've been there, come back, seen around.

I ride the rainbow and roll the dice
on the great big stage of the stars
where the edge of eternity is the place I fly
as the point man on the wedge.
I skydance there quite often now,
for the love of it.  
For spice.

So I’m marrying this young girl, see,
it’s the second time round.
My first wife died and
I’ve been struggling and drowning.
So I'm clutching the life raft
of this girl who is beautiful and young,
who’s romantic and sure of her ground,
and she and her family believe
that I can breathe and survive again.

Me?  Can I remember how to be gentle and kind to them?
It was luck. I was lucky before.
Because now I'm a veteran of the thousand campaigns
and I’ve bayed at the moon, see,
then I hunted with The Beast.

And anyway, my first wife and I
(*******, her name is Lorayne!)
suffered, and then suffocated
before our love soared so high.
Then we danced like fireflies, fabulously,
until the future ended forever.

So how can this new girl
find ecstasy with me and, and,
you know, live happily ever after,
which is such an impossible dream,
and how can I handle all this ******* purity
and innocence and beauty and youth
and flawless skin and fairy tale stuff
when I’m so gnarled
and twisted and knotted?
You see, I'm actually deeply ashamed.
In spite of my much vaunted campaigns,
I'm really a coward.
I'm afraid I can't drag myself back and do this again.
Can we possibly become fireflies and dance in the flame?

Yes, yes, I know.
We'll swear to love and to honor and to obey
in sickness and in health
in richness and in poorness
until death do us part.
Though this formula's too cute. It doesn't mention the pain.

But there's no other option. I must try to rise up again,
and alright, once more, I'll call on the flame.
So I'll cast out my demons and force them away.
Somehow, I'll hold those monsters at bay to give you
the light and the love you say
is still there, everywhere.
You are wide-eyed and oh, so naive.
But I desperately want to believe you.
I need you.
Oh god, I hope we can love without fear.

Mike T Minehan

Sometimes I cup her breast
while she sleeps curled up.
Sometimes it’s just the merest brush of skin,
the toes, perhaps, that meet somewhere
in the shoal of sheets.
Maybe it’s just an arm flung carelessly
or a leg akimbo here or there.
Her flanks are also sleek and smooth,
and is it a dream I sneak
of riding wild and reckless
through the canyons of our sleep?
But mostly, just simply holding hands
stops me tumbling in the void.
I don’t know if she knows
she's my bridge across forever.
Oh yes, I know that I'm a dreamer,
and I know that forever never lasts,
but I still hold her, oh so gently,
through the darkness of my night.

Mike T Minehan

So you want to be immortal, huh?
What? In one of my poems?
Jeez.  I've just written you a poem
and now you want another.
Brother.  You're insatiable.
I mean, I bet you Shakespeare's missus
didn't say, hey Will, how's about a sonnet
just to sock it to this mortal coil
before we shuffle off, recoiling.
And then, just because she hath her way,
he grabs his quill and says, yair, OK,
now what are the parameters here?
Do ya want some iambic pentameter?

I mean, look.  Fair **** of the saveloy,
no, seriously, why do you think us poets
slave away in our word factories,
hammering out rhythms,
breathing sparks into everything,
giving a few bangs on the side
and trying to straighten it all out?
Eh?  Words almost fail me!

It's because we're trying
to become immortal ourselves!
That's why.  And even if I were
to borrow and to borrow
from the old bard it'd be just like
the plague arisen again with
that Bacon business.
I'd do small good, see?  Forever.

So listen.  Even if I compare thee with
a summer's day and it fair ****** down with rain,
I'm still the one who has to hack the trail.
Right.  So let’s cut a deal here, immediately.
If I, me, this poet can first find immortality,
no worries.  You're welcome to the recipe.

Substantial reward
paid for the following lost items:
sense of endless time,
boundless ambition,
athletic body,
presumed omniscience,
undimmed enthusiasm
and blind optimism.
Former owner wants to
restore original self
and has not yet lost hope.

Mike T Minehan

Success *****, as they say,
hellishly.  She's a rich little
seductress who's certainly sensational
at blowing a man's brains out.
I know.  She had her teeth into me.
I can smile now, but for a while
I couldn't get enough. She was hot stuff,
that ***** goddess, success.

I was a real sucker for her charms
when she came greasing up.
I really got into the groove
when she pulled me off to the gravy train
where we gobbled down every drop.
I tell you, I couldn't stop.
What a succulent princess she is,
that ***** goddess, success.

But after it had all blown over
and she was hanging out with other guys,
I had a few days when my eyes weren't glazed.
Maybe she was a bit of a *****, actually,
always hustling for more.
Attractive to woo, but really, she *******
them, always pushing to score,
that ***** goddess, success.

I met her again the other day,
and she ran her tongue over her lips. Jeez.
I nearly went weak at the knees.
But we're only old friends now,
and I'm over her disease. So I wasn't desperate to please
her.  She's such a terrible tease. She wriggled her assets
but I didn't ask her to come again,
that ***** goddess, success.

Mike T Minehan

She came first in a dream
when I was fifteen. Yes,
she was the fire of ecstasy and her first licks
set my world aflame.
She's a shape-shifter, sometimes
fair and sometimes dark,
but always naked
when she comes.
She often whispers secrets
in the molten, swollen nights.
She even shows me jungles
and raging torrents down
where tom toms throb.
But when the morning breaks,
and I'm alone,
I struggle to remember.
Accordingly, I search the cities,
the far off mists and mountains
and the subterranean rivers
every burning day.
So it won’t surprise you to know
that where I mostly go to find her now
is under the volcano,
the place of endless fire.
It's where us dreamers and those demons
dance with our desire.

Mike T Minehan

Of course,
the answer is everything.
Compassion, cordite, celebrity
and self fulfillment.
Immortality in children,
and love.
Then what about hate?
Ah, just embrace it.
It’s everywhere.
You can’t change it.
And anyway,
who can understand love without hate?

The loved ones I watched die
taught me about acceptance
and transcendence and most of all,
love. This was even though I was
deep in the abyss after they died,
but I realized later that this abyss
is where I learned the lessons
about living. Without the abyss,
and their gift of love,
I could never have known this.
You see, the power of their love
was the light towards which
I climbed out of the darkness.
Their death was a beginning
and a giving. This was the process
of passing their light on to me,
and theirs is the light that guides me now.
This incandescence is a sustenance
that glows with the golden strength
of giant, gentle suns.
It's mighty. And magnificent. And humbling,
because now I know that
love is the light that lives forever.

Mike T Minehan

His proper name is ‘*****’.
But early on,
he was christened
Fergie Fang.
Yes, and she called hers
Fergie Fang’s Fan.
Fantastic!

In later years,
during foreign affairs,
he became The Ambassador,
then was elevated to
His Royal Highness.
Preposterous of course!

Now, I simply call him
the meaning of life
and laughter.

And really, I don’t know
which comes first,
or after.

******.  Come back,
you faithless little ****-tease, Muse,
you maddening author of my abuse.
Please don't amuse yourself this way.

I know it's love-hate,
de facto, inchoate.
But don't you know I seethe for seed
and writhe to write?

I love you, Muse.
There must be some mistake.
So end this wretched heartache
and for art's sake,
light my ******* fuse!

Mike T Minehan