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1679

Rather arid delight
If Contentment accrue
Make an abstemious Ecstasy
Not so good as joy—

But Rapture’s Expense
Must not be incurred
With a tomorrow knocking
And the Rent unpaid—
Rose Mar 2019
so                        
                              be                        
                             the                        
                            calm                        
                           green                        
                        so strong                        
                       all living               and      
      it               all green             small      
      calm   if      ever so calm        standing        
      all light      quite special   so branches        
       so secret a   rather small   rather green        
       quite strong  very special  ever so living        
        all special  esoteric, humble, specific          
        particular branches standing, quietly            
       ever so light twigs eating, graciously            
        its primary branches standing, quietly          
          buoyant twigs eating, graciously              
           lite twigs feeding, graciously                
        so    esoteric, humble, specific     .          
   so    ever so clear twigs eating, graciously          
   exceptional branches, loose twigs, covert morals      
    specific branches, clear twigs, secret morality      
     extra branches, pure twigs, privy ethical motive    
       specific branches, clear twigs, esoteric morals  
       ever so abstemious twigs eating, graciously      
        esoteric, fine, new positively special          
          decidedly small a   all living                
          calm  foliage   a     standing                
               a tree     a       strong!                
               tree       a           leaf              
               no         a                              
                          .
mikev Jun 2015
You say words
I speak my mind
You fight wars
I spread inner peace one piece at a time
You cast stones
At glass homes
You are too much alike.
Some once called him a Grand Old Man,
Others called him a slime,
You couldn’t get a consensus that
Was even, all the time,
For some kow-towed to his money, while
Others fell by his sword,
His life was overall sunny, while
His victims quailed at his word.

He lorded it over his children,
He ruled their kids with ease,
A sullen look from beneath his brow
Would bring them to their knees,
His will was forever changing
As solicitors came and went,
One day he’d offer a mansion,
And another day, a tent.

When he finally died he was stony broke
And they wondered where it went,
He’d always been abstemious
But the money had been spent.
He left all their lives in ruins with
Their expectations gone,
A couple of ramshackle houses were
The only things they won.

There wasn’t the money to bury him
So they left him where he sat,
Up at the head of the table in
His black, beribboned hat,
He glared at them as he’d glared in life
One hand on the table-top,
Where he used to tap with his finger
As if it would never stop.

Tap-tap-tap on the table-top,
Tap-tap-tap it went,
His eyes bored into the back of your head
As if to say - Repent!
And people scurried, this way and that
To divine what the tartar meant,
The grim old man in his black top hat
Who ruled to their detriment.

They left him sat and they locked the door
Didn’t go back for a year,
Til the eldest, saying ‘let’s know for sure,’
Returned with a tinge of fear.
‘He might have stocks in his waistband there
Or shares hid under his shirt,
Or cash stuffed in his beribboned hat -
He treated us all like dirt!’

He ventured into the dining room
Where the grim old man still sat,
His eyes a-glare in the year long gloom
From under the brim of his hat.
But as the eldest approached him there
The finger began to tap,
A steady rap with a note of doom
That would curdle blood to sap.

So Toby dived to the tinder box
And he leapt up with the axe,
His face as pale as a ghostly tale
But determined to attack.
He raised the axe and he let it fall
Severed the finger there,
It skittered across the table top
As the old man fell from his chair.

The stocks were stuffed in the old man’s hat
The shares were stuffed in his sleeve,
And so much cash in his waistband that
They said, you wouldn’t believe.
But still he’s locked in that grey old house
For they found it wouldn’t stop,
That severed finger that skittered there
Still taps on the table-top!

David Lewis Paget
There was an old person of Rye,
Who went up to town on a fly;
But they said, 'If you cough,
You are safe to fall off!'
You abstemious old person of Rye!'
Sue Dunhym Nov 2010
Maybe because we are the youngs,
We believe we are entitled to tongues.
That we shall be heard,
To you it is absurd.
Like the beetle, you roll the dung.

You think us silly children,
Yet inside lies the cauldron
That shouts the time of the youth.
Forsaken by the booth,
We begin our costly sojourn.

Our eyes reveal our mind ambitious.
Your eyes see through silicasacious
Perception of a generation passed.
Culture imposed in the manner of caste.
I condemn you to be philosophically abstemious

It is directly simple, comrade
We have jumped from the time balustrade
You a little early,
Us, a little burly
Yet, it was all meant for a crusade

This is an adage for thinkers
To ensure we and you never wear the blinkers.
This is my warning,
To stay awake until morning
Remember that we eventually rest with clinkers.
copyright of  TP Flusk
spysgrandson Jan 2017
deep in the warren
they feel safe from the treachery
of my carnivorous calling

but I can use the shovel,
that terrible tool of modernity--after all,
'tis a favorite of grave diggers

a few scoops in the dank soil
and the rabbits are vulnerable to my attack:
a simple bashing of twitching skulls

my hands driven by a hunger
they satisfy with grasses in summer,
twigs, roots in winter

I wish my needs were so meager
my appetite so abstemious--but I crave
blood fresh flesh, torn from the bone

without their sacrifice, I must seek
bigger beasts, long dead, cellophane sealed
and put on ****** display

or become a vegan and ground great grains,
boil lazy legumes, and feign a higher nobility
in what I eat and excrete
no offense intended to vegetarians, or rabbits
spysgrandson Apr 2014
billions bubble the carcasses
of hedge fund managers, pigs, poets,
and priests, sublimely engaging in gaseous feasts,
without complaint, or abstemious restraint  

sans their gargantuan gobbling,
our balanced plain would be littered
with mountains of crap

soft winds would still blow,
searing suns would yet set  
but we would grow tired
of shoveling heaved heaps  
into freshly dug dirt,
if the drosophila did not live
so robustly, and die
without dour dirge
my last two attempts at verse have been crap, or about crap, or both, I suppose
Attributed To Concerned parents
of Traumatized Refugee
Dear Fred and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump...

Posthumous belated tattered letter fragment
recently discovered (liberally sprinkled with
hyperbole (presumed for greater audacious
zealousness), sans accidentally acquired
by yours truly.

Miscellaneous personal item highly valued
when thwarted from auctioneer, whose gently
persuasion collectible merchandise requisitioned,
thence keepsake property perfunctory mandatorily forfeited.

Due compensation from sole male heir (me),
whose long since (resting in eternal
peace) papa suffered degradation,
humiliation and understandable lamentation
as a kid living in Flatbush.

Authorities and expert legal scholars
pieced together what probably comprised
a lengthy epistle rivaling the Epic of
Gilgamesh).

Recollection recounted torturous,
malicious, and flagitious mean spiritedness
visited upon the ambitious, cadaverous, and
timorous body electric high-jinxed introverted male,
whose abstemious, conscientious, and nutritious
dietary regime, could not forestall rigor mortis.

A postscript (purportedly penned prior to
once philosophical pensive poet's papa's passing)
stated that said personage felt bitterness,
disharmonious envious self loathing.

That grownup man known as mine father,
though once upon a time, said recently
anonymous deceased old fogey ironically
registered as an atrocious, cantankerous,
and egregious deplorable high school student.

Also, the author of what constitutes partial
opprobrious litany attests during his
idolatrous, notorious, and semiconscious
Arab zombie school daze.

He ranked as de facto semiprecious,
tremulous and unanimous scapegoat
bullied by a bumptious, callous,
disputatious hippopotamus of a brat
infamous bruiser later in his life to become
forty fifth president of UnIted States.

Though documentation incomplete, the un
named subject referred within torn shred
recovered included signatory couching
ambiguous references to a tenebrous,
unscrupulous, and vicious ******* initials.

Dee Tee quickly intuitively assessed
as one inhumane specimen, whose pugnacious,
pretentious, and pestiferous, persona characterized
impetuous, adulterous apprenticeship appetite
for erecting ******* skyscrapers.

This once pacific pilloried pupil, whose grown
son (myself), now recalls father's misty eyed
anecdotes dripping with acrimonious, curmudgeonly
grouchy, grizzly and crotchety old sorries,
viz refashioned abominable kamikaze
psychological sorties.

I can vividly recall (how painful unto his old age)
oft daddy's repeated quotidian taunts, whereby
that bad ***, acidulous, avaricious, contemptuous,
enormous, and grievous big boy trumpeting
bruiser exuded devious, heinous, libelous, and
parsimonious tightwad, though born into wealth.
The Ending

This old ***** ship
Rusty and tired
Her engine often stopped
It was a struggle
To start it again
The sun rejected
This ship sailed
In a fog of despair
The crew was
Residue
Of harbour debris
For the officer the last
Chance Saloon
Misfits who struggled
To stay abstemious
Some failed
Disappeared
In the night.
Off the coast of Peru
She died
Sank slowly
Beneath the ocean
With her
Tax avoidance
Flag flying
As you talk
I cannot help smoke a little
In my mind as I am abstemious
And write about me
Sip on tea, so that I am not tempted
As you spit out the pips
Of an orange
You cannot resist some mulled wine
Neither can I
But I'll make liquor flow from your lines
Intoxicate your muses
They will pay a dime for your time
A pocket is enough for the stars you want
In your prime you may have taken a sip of milk
Now you're a someone I can have later
With sugar and cream
You are my cuppa tea
Spirits talk to us as we caress our glasses
And tip the wine and let time flow like love

— The End —