Brush, bathe, breakfast
Reach, learn, unlearn
Meet, share, laugh
Lunch, nap, hustle.

I sing of human dignity
whose absence can be seen
through lens of foul reality
within Mad Magazine !

The foibles of America,
the hubris and the glory
the paunch, the slouch, the bad-hair lives,
the real plebeian story.

Bruegel’s mobs and Ensor’s masks
improved, enhanced, updated
on comic page, until one asks:
is painting overrated?

Beardsley, Hogarth, masters all—
and acid-etched our race;
but unkind pure hilarious truth
beams forth from Alfred’s face.

The dolts, the clods, the leering fools,
the sociopathic clowns,
glitter like fractured plastic jewels
in Walmart-purchased crowns.

Alfred Neuman has the goods.
The lash, at first, feels bad
when whips of satire welt our back.
Behold the man: he’s MAD !

10 failed poems later
I go running to free verse
whose arms are always open
in welcome, in acceptance,
unconditional and forgiving.

Perhaps a little cocky,
it frees me from the ropes
of syllables and meter,
allowing me space
to build, shape, and tie
my poem together
as if doing me
a favour.

One World Limerick

The notion of nations united
gets the global progressives excited.
Their party of Babel
is ******’s own rabble
(we’re left with the Right uninvited).


Values Clarification Limerick

Many worldlings (whose ways we bemoan)
hope their lives we’ll approve and condone.
But we couldn’t care less
for the views they profess;
we just wish they would leave us alone


Roman Limerick

Our antichrist leaders (so Fabian)
are more Nero, and less like Octavian.
So with Caesars and salad
I’ll dress up my ballad.
(The future’s plebeian or Flavian.)


Kente Pajamas Limerick

A racist obtuse Afro-whiner
Tried to give the right-wing a black shiner
While applauding Obama
He railed at my mama
His manners could be a lot finer  .  .  .


Apocalyptic Limerick

The riddles of John’s Revelation
imply a large-scale devastation.
The end is not too clear
but looks rather nuclear:
a well-deserved A–bomb-in-nation.


Freethinking Limerick

An atheist, weary of fables
Found his intellect turning the tables.
He declared: As a nihilist
held to a higher list,
I’m for erasing the labels.


Mendacious Limerick

Fake propaganda as news
only fools those it’s meant to confuse
there is wrong, there is right
when you’re left in the light
of a nation with little to lose.

नीयत की जब बात हो, बेचेैनी जग जाय।
'गर स्याही की रीत हो, तब कुछ संयम आय।।