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Mike Hauser Mar 2016
Pardon me waiter
But there's a fly in my soup
Doing the backstroke
Whit Howland Apr 2021
You say I say
my wife

told me to stop
impersonating

a flamingo
I had to put my foot down

you see a sad face
but it's only a facade

I went shopping for some camouflage pants
but couldn't find any

the tears flow in puddles
but they are not that of a clown

why

you ask

because he already died
laughing

(rimshot)

the last time I heard that one
cars had fins

and scales

(honk honk}

I was wondering why the frisbee
kept getting bigger and bigger

and then it hit me
I keep staring at the phone

hoping you will call
and explain why you left

all those years ago

whit howland © 2021
An abstract word painting. An original.
I vow not to lose my mind because my underpants have been stolen
by gold-star dykers exposing for me to see purplish ******* swollen
midway between noses & bellies yet far above each impacted colon
in the casket of what putridly remains of Satanic slave Lloyd Nolan
who died not wrecked into a tree by a Julia-type as had Marc Bolan
after knocking up driver Gloria Jones, with whom he sunk a goal in
he croaked one last croak as fast as Henny Youngman told a joke in
betwixt Ed's toady laugh & the intro of Johnny's ******-guest token
never had there been mo' jive **** shat, visually projected & spoken
& articulated with mucho abandon disregard for busted toys broken
floorward, sonically disruptive enough to awake cadavers unwoken
& so loud as to shake the deadliest of unawakened corpses awoken,
conscious & alert like ****-******* New Jerseyites from Hoboken
who fled Hispaniola island in strung-together rafts of pine & oaken
that groaned like ****** plagiarist Jerzy Kosiński during his croakin'
Michael John Oct 2024
so i would say
you missed that bit
out..

sometimes i just thought it
in the silence
they might

ask what my book was
about-tolstoy´s rendition of
the napolionic wars..

or  portrait of an artist as
a youngman- joyce..
(that is a favourite..)

conflict of different kinds
nobody had an idea
what was going on..

the human condition fraught
with misunderstanding and
omission..

ii

any good?
not much..
so where was i
a litany of pointless

violence..without
an ending
faith to blood
hell and small bird..
Whenever the missus irks me or complains...
I tell her don't "Hock me in chinik" nor kvetch
before long tête-à-tête escalates in2 Kanipshin
whereby the Army National Guard gets called
World War III declared Bubbe rolled over like
Beethoven in his grave where re: posthumous
renown one hundred & ninety eight years ago
March 26, 1827, never stopped decomposing
which countless noteworthy creations rank as
the mark of a prodigy with chutzpah to return
from the grave as an incorporeal essence with
trademark shock of hair unwittingly impacted
young hearts of females that went into aflutter
unbeknownst to said lasses who would qualify
as "groupies" in the parlance of contemporary
fans, but little known fact that unassuming key
gifted musician counts teachers, including his
father, Christian Gottlob Neefe, Joseph Haydn,
Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Antonio Salieri,
& Johann Schenk bridged gap tween Classical
and Romantic eras centuries after the onset of
Yiddish, whereby scholars dated origin of the
language to the 9th century, when Ashkenazim
emerged as a unique cultural entity in central
Europe, thus speculation abounds that lyrical
spine tingling pièce de résistance Ode to Joy -
a melody based on poem by Friedrich Schiller
celebrates the unity of humankind, which song
considered a European anthem and a symbol
of brotherhood, freedom, & equality impossible
mission undertaken by semitic people generally
& Jewish folks particularly even then countless
centuries before relatively contemporary nations
resembled present day geography formerly the
cradle of Yiddish, which owned the equivalent
of top ten hits on billboard chart for beginning
of gobsmacked world predating REM by quite
a large number of centuries construing seeds of
life & white lily inchoate harbingers of Borscht
Belt a region in the Catskill Mountains of New
York that was a popular summer destination for
Jewish Americans from the 1920s to the 1960s:
The area was also known as the "Jewish Alps,"
showcasing debut of many notable comedians
such as the following extensive dam charming
name dropping who brought down the house
analogous to Rolling Stones “Rock the Casbah.”

Abbott & Costello, Joey Adams, Woody Allen, Morey Amsterdam, Bea Arthur, Sandy Baron, Jack Benny, Milton Berle Shelley Berman, Joey Bishop, Mel Blanc, Victor Borge, Mel Brooks, Lenny Bruce, Burns & Allen Pesach Burstein, Red Buttons, Sid Caesar, Jean Carroll, Jack Carter, Myron Cohen, Billy Crystal, Bill Dana, Rodney Dangerfield, Phyllis Diller, and the name dropping list continues with Totie Fields, Mickey Freeman, Betty Garrett, Estelle Getty, George Gobel, Shecky Greene, Buddy Hackett, George Jessel, Mickey Katz, Danny Kaye, Alan King, Robert Klein, Harvey Korman, Jack E. Leonard, Mal Z. Lawrence, Sam Levenson, Jerry Lewis, Richard Lewis, The Marx Brothers, Jackie Mason, Lou Menchell, Corbett Monica, Howard Morris, Zero Mostel, Jan Murray, Freddie Prinze Sr., Carl Reiner, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, Freddie Roman, Rowan & Martin, Mort Sahl, Soupy Sales, **** Shawn, Allan Sherman, Phil Silvers, Arnold Stang, David Steinberg, Jerry Stiller, The Three Stooges, Jackie Vernon, Gene Wilder, Jonathan Winters, Ed Wynn, and Henny Youngman to cap off shortlisted personalities who guaranteed a crowded house.
Dru Nov 2024
I wear a youngman clothes no more
It is Friday night and am tucked in at 10 pm
Quiet music please am reading a book
I have lost a few friends recently
No, dropped a few friends
I now enjoy a small circle, no fuss

Yes, my knees creak at times
I can't go long without a need to leak
The wear and tear is clear
Luckily, the mind is still clear
I dread when it will turn foggy
How time humbles

— The End —