Hey, celebrate the loser
not just the victor
it's OK that you don't always win
like the time
your little sister could find the answer
to a Year 10 math question
and you couldn't do it
though you were older

it's OK...to be a loser, not a winner always
like the time you argued and argued
and turned out you were wrong
but you just slipped away quietly
and you've suppressed it in your memory

it's OK if you don't have stories
to tell of your victories always
and how others were wrong
and you were right
or others have no principles and ethics
how you are the 90%winner
or everyone else is ******* the planet
it's OK to be the loser
and to celebrate the loser in you
and I don't say this
because of some liberating paradox like
winners start from being losers -
but simply it's OK to celebrate losing
just losing oneself in the loser
Have no other thought in the moment -
*it's OK to celebrate the loser

the last time
my long-suffering
paranoid wife
went to the dentist
she sat obediently
and when she could,
she grabbed what she could

and the dentist, always used to a
position of power, said with calm and dignity:
"Excuse me lady, you got me by my *****;
perhaps you want to take your hands off?"

"Well," said my fearful wife,
the timid victim
*"If  we all handle things easy
ain't nobody gonna hurt, okay"

I went to the dentist -
reluctantly, definitely -
and I closed my eyes and
I felt metal against my teeth
as the dentist probed my mouth
and then I heard his words:
"Oh what a deep cavity...
Deep cavity...
Deep cavity"

And I said timidly:
"Come on, doctor...you needn't repeat
those words - I'm frightened enough
just coming here"

"I wasn't repeating,"
said the dentist
precise  in his words
*"Those were echoes you heard"

read me literal, dear reader
please - for I never transcend
beyond the obvious
I am in the physical, embodied and whole
and so cannot go into things figurative
or metaphorical,
satirical, persona-cast, parodic or symbolic
Irony, I've always known, is some contraption
wrought by an ironsmith

and so to me, dear reader
"He's got the whole world in his hands"
is a ridiculous proposition, makes no sense;
and Isaac Newton was obviously
suffering from concussion
from the literal apple
that hit him ******* his head
when he extemporised:
"If I have seen further it is
by standing on the shoulders of giants."
Bah! Humbug! - a scientist and you believe in giants!
Come on Newton - you're nuts!  Stick to apples!

read me literal, dear reader -
so when I say my wife is an angel
I mean she's dead and she floats around me
making ****** sure I don't get hitched again
till I too become an angel, or fiend,
however it may come to pass;
and the guy who tells me: "Nice day, isn't it"
when it's raining cats and dogs
is obviously some crazy *******

I  did a gig last night
at the local bar - Moderation Inn,
they called it

and  I played the piano
late into the night -
the usual tunes, the usual crowd:
friends and lovers
people talking aloud
no one who drank in moderation;
couples dancing...when I noticed
an elephant in the corner
crying,  
and I said to the elephant
even as I continued playing:
"Recognise the tune?"

"No,"  said the elephant,
shaking its head
*"I recognise the ivory"

just a few days after Beethoven was buried
the local drunk heard
music over the composer's grave;
the priest came running
and he said a few prayers
and crossed the air and his chest;
the Mayor came running
and wondered if
this would be it: big dollars and tourism


and so they called for an expert in music
who listened with them
to the ninth Symphony being played
inside the grave
but backward;
and then each other symphony
from the eighth
to the first,
each played backward -
and then, duly composed, the guest expert
made his proclamation:
*There is nothing to worry
about this phenomenon
and this will end soon:
it is  merely Beethoven decomposing

this poem (joke-from-online-transformed-into-verse) is dedicated to everyone at HP...smile, and be happy always



"You know,"* said the sun
sending a flare out at the moon
"You're not a planet - a moon
is what you are...a little kid
in the system of things, that's
what you are"

"Look who's talking," replied the moon
*"If you're so big in the scheme of things
how come you can't come out nights?"