"beery" poems
Ach so! thou much-praised and lauded Milwaukee,
Thou delightful Wisconsin Stadt of boundless pulchritude,
Verily hath History endowed thy blessed name
With the noisomely beery breath of immortality!
And thank the benign Almighty in highest Heav’n
That thy delectable streets and arboreal squares
Doth remain heretofore untouched by unseemly civic strife,
Despite thy renown as veritable midwife to Sewer Socialism!
Yet, tear-inducing recollections have I of this dwelling-place
And herewith followeth heart-rending remembrances
Of what transpired when I inveigled a plump young Mädchen there
For a brief sojourn of untrammelled concupiscence.
Alas, alack, after gorging her impetuous appetites
On a gargantuan repast of mitteleuropäische delicacies,
Methinks her poor heart gave up survival’s uneven battle
And, warbling a soft piffero-reminiscent sigh, she expired.
‘Twas too tragic thus to depart this happy welkin in mid-prandials,
Emitting a final flatus, sweet adieu, from her rearmost aperture,
Leaving me, her poor forlorn swain, bereft and solitary,
Faced with mine host’s request for instant monetary rendition.
From that naughty place of my bereavement fled I,
Clutching to my ***** the contents of her silken purse,
Determined to partake in untrammelled ***** licence elsewhere,
Ere the chanticleer’s dawn croak wake the inebriated citizens.
Dec 5, 2014
Dec 5, 2014 at 12:21 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Beowulf and the Danish Passport Officer
From a recently discovered manuscript
The clapped-out Boeing wheezed to the gate
The ground crew jumped name-tags rattling
And swiftly moored the shining ocean-bird
Behind his plastic shield a Danish official watched
The travelers approach their passports raised
He stood peeking down at the naughty selfie
His girlfriend sent to his bold smart-phone
Shaking his rubber stamp he spoke:
“What is the purpose of your visit?
Business, or pleasure? Hwaet! I’ve stood
At this same gate longer than you know
Keeping our gift shops free from British footer hooligans
No commoner carries such fine matching luggage
Unless his Rolex and his boyish good looks
Are lies You! Tell me your name
And your home address and your email!
The quicker the better I’m off-duty in ten minutes.”
Beowulf answered him Unlocking his smart-phone:
“We are the Geats the mighty, mighty Geats!
Men who follow Malmo FF Malmo FF the great!
And we have come seeking Parken Stadium
Greatest of all stadia Its shining seats polished
By cheering generations of fat-full footer fans
We have come to cheer Malmo FF
While they whup up on Dansk Boldspil Union
Instruct us, watchman Where is the stadium
But first, where is the beer?”
The worthy officer
Answered him boldly:
“A true fan knows
The difference between fighting on the field
And puking in the stands and keeps that knowledge clear
In his beery brain I believe your babbling
Go forward, credit cards and all on into Denmark
Spend your money! Our exchange rate is generous!
And then go home bearing our love while we bear your money.”
(Stamp, stamp, stamp) “Tram stop to the left
Taxis to the right”
(Scholars everywhere will regret that here the burnt and torn manuscript breaks off.)
Oct 4, 2021
Oct 4, 2021 at 9:10 AM UTC
Bukowski whispers
his beery breath on my neck
don’t forget the cats.
May 10, 2012
May 10, 2012 at 9:44 AM UTC
strange professions and true confessions from a lockdown town (4/17/20)
————————————————————————————-————-
not a great idea,
in the not-yet-dawn,
to write
a poem entitled
strange professions,
true confessions
dried stains of prior leakings
upon old ‘n yellowed linoleum,
no need for more friends,
for sure, for sure,
that’s the smart play
you see! right there
I’m professing age
old wisdom,
confessing my sorry face is
well acquainted with
floor coverings,
where even the
soles of my shoes
won’t admit they been polluted,
having stepped in rooms
of low and ill repute,
those them there,
right in here
poetry writing sites
where there ain’t no
guideposts, reminding
what’s in the heart
pretend stays in Vegas,
but what the heck,
since I’m here already,
might as well,
ready go and spill,
things you don’t
need to know but...
help the time pass
in this lockdown town,
where total silence is
the loudest sound around
wine, empty beery bottles,
bad rhymes give me up,
just before I start a hey look!
it’s a brand new
sunny rain afternoon
the governor pronounced
we all gotta be masked,
24/7 inside and out,
the women complain that it
musses hair, the men say,
who me? nah, got
nothing to say about that,
We, don’t make no con-cessions...
when you can’t see
my lips moving, or my
one good eye be winking,
means it’s likely that I’m lying
they say, I’m going
stir crazy,
not me says he,
unlike some guy who
wanted to blow up the
Alice-in Wonderland statue in
Central Park, hell,
u could look it up!
guess I coulda call this
here epistle, official “Lockdown Blues,”
but I jes heard gotta stay inside
till June Seventeen
that’s the good news,
plenty o’time to set
my affairs in order,
burn the poems nobody
needs seeing, those them
there with weirdness galore,
say no more,
you can whine, it’s fine,
no caring, no hearing,
past way the point,
where running or returning
is an option viable for nut jobs
them, with strange professions
and true confessions...
May 19, 2020
May 19, 2020 at 4:56 PM UTC
The light laughs and dances on his tongue.
A taste of summers gone and summers not prompt enough.
Beery boys in lunchtime queues, lightly roasted by an illusive sun.
The office boy, the lunch ladies, the cyclist zipped, bursting from his mac.
Here a moment, gone the next.
The schoolgirl in her dolly shoes, the old man in pause,
Mesmerized Labradors weave in and out of trees and anything.
“You’ve drop a pound, miss”, but the tunes of now, hum in her head.
A seagull glides, watching, unnoticed, unknowing.
The postman catches his reflection in the glass door, sighs.
On it’s axis, turning, the door spins and motivates, turning.
Tall crowds of too many, leaning ignorant over the homeless man.
“He just leaves in his own time” says the reception.
A bell, a call, then nothing.
All as empty as church, now that churches are empty.
While inside as drunk and ferocious as hammered church mice.
Sweaty, squeezed thighs melt into soft seats then, nothing.
Saturdays of singing, later shouting, “bread of heaven”,
Swearing to our god that London can hear us.
The same arguments, point after point, pint after pint.
Warm beer and the same conversation, it doesn’t get better.
But it doesn’t get worse.
JWS
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 11:40 AM UTC
We all piled out of the pub
****** as a load of newts;
'Where to now boys?'
Bellowed naughty Niall O 'Neill
(that's notorious nineteen pints a night Niall)
As he tottered over to his Pa's Rolls Royce.
*'Do ye think ye should be driving
With that record-breakin' skinful
I just seen you put away?'*
Enquired serious Sean slurringly
From his slightly inconvenient
Viewpoint in the beery gutter.
So we all clambered gaily into the car
And roared off into the enchanted night
And then this ****** stupid clodhopper
Who didn't even have his driving licence yet
Came round the next corner in his Ford
And got sent to Kingdom-sodding-Come.
*'Oh **** would ye just look at the mess
The oul' fella's made of me Daddy's car,
And it's his pride and joy so it is!'*
Cried Niall O'Neill in incandescent rage,
As he surveyed the largest insurance claim
In the County Wicklow for twenty years.
How fortunate Father Tucker and Garda Sergeant O'Toole
Could both testify from their vantage point
In the front seat of the devastated Roller,
The accident was not Niall's fault at all, at all,
As the other stupid sober ****** was on
The wrong side of the ****** street.
Dec 24, 2014
Dec 24, 2014 at 10:46 AM UTC
I knocked
on Lydia's front door
and waited
the morning sun
was coming
into the Square
Lydia's old man
opened the door
and stared at me
with bloodshot eyes
what do you want?
he said
is Lydia
coming out?
I asked
who wants to know?
I do
why?
wondered if she'd like
to see the trains
I said
why would she
want to see trains?
he said gruffly
she likes trains
I said
he looked beyond me
at the block of flats behind
who said
she likes trains?
she did
I said
I work
with fecking trains
all day
she's never said
about trains before
he said
looking at me again
his eyes trying
to focus
we often
go see trains
I said
we went to Waterloo
train station
the other week
he closed his eyes
rubbed
his hairy chin
and breathed out
a beery flavour
LYDIA
he bellowed suddenly
I stepped off
the front door step
and stood
gaping at him
LYDIA
he called again
he opened his eyes
and stared at me
I detected life
behind the mask
Lydia came
to the door
and peeped under
her old man's arm
this kid wants to know
if you want go see
fecking trains
he said gently
his voice silky
do you?
she nodded her head
yes
can I?
she asked
he looked at me
as if I’d just
stolen his wallet
trains?
he said
steam trains
I said
yes steam trains
she said
we like watching them
he raised his eyebrows
and looked down at her
under his arm
resting on the door jamb
ok ok
if you want go see trains
go see trains
he said
and wandered off
inside
leaving Lydia and me
looking at each other
Waterloo again?
I asked
what about Victoria station?
she said
ok sure
I replied
and she turned
around
to go get
her shoes inside.
Mar 27, 2014
Mar 27, 2014 at 5:34 PM UTC
Mermaid Fascination
Put a seashell to your ear and hear
the storm that blew and the call from
the mermaid you met when wading
along the shores of Peru.
The tail thing is a myth because I met
her late in the evening in a pink room
perfumed to cover for the odour of
beery men, who live in dread of dentists.
She was glad to see me and I seeing
her, although not at this place, yet she
took an hour off her busy schedule and
we made love without haste.
Jun 1, 2015
Jun 1, 2015 at 4:06 AM UTC
Small Tales
by Michael R. Burch
When Artur and Cai and Bedwyr
were but scrawny lads
they had many a ***** adventure
in the still glades
of Gwynedd.
When the sun beat down like an oven
upon the kiln-hot hills
and the scorched shores of Carmarthen,
they went searching
and found Manawydan, the son of Llyr.
They fought a day and a night
with Cath Pulag (or a screeching kitten),
rousted Pen Palach, then drank a beer
and told quite a talltale or two,
"till thems wasn’t so shore which’un’s tails wus true."
And these have been passed down to me, and to you.
According to legend, Arthur and Kay grew up together in Ector’s court, Kay being a few years older than Arthur. Borrowing from Mary Stewart, I am assuming that Bedwyr (later Anglicized to Bedivere) might have befriended Arthur at an early age. By some accounts, Bedwyr was the original Lancelot. In any case, imagine the adventures these young heroes might have pursued (or dreamed up, to excuse tardiness or “lost” homework assignments). Manawydan and Llyr were ancient Welsh gods. Cath Pulag was a monstrous, clawing cat. (“Sorry teach! My theme paper on Homer was torn up by a cat bigger than a dragon! And meaner, too!”) Pen Palach is more or less a mystery, or perhaps just another old drinking buddy with a few good beery-bleary tales of his own. This poem assumes that many of the more outlandish Arthurian legends began more or less as “small tales,” little white lies which simply got larger and larger with each retelling. It also assumes that most of these tales came about just as the lads reached that age when boys fancy themselves men, and spend much of their free time drinking and puking! Keywords/Tags: King Arthur, boy, boyhood, ***** drinking, beer, ale, tall tales, Wales
Apr 18, 2020
Apr 18, 2020 at 12:50 AM UTC
The car horns toll the knell of parting day,
The toxic fumes creep slowly o’er the park,
The traffic homeward plods its weary way,
And leaves the world to joggers and the dark.
Now fades the shimmering lakescape on the sight,
And to the air the dusk its stillness brings,
Save where mosquitoes wheel in droning flight,
Ross River virus loaded in their stings;
Save that from yonder television tower
The besieged magnate to his “mates” complains
The A.B.T. has exercised its power,
Sent him packing without ill-gotten gains.
Beneath those tiled roofs, that mortgaged shade,
Where heaves the serf in many an exhausted heap,
Each of the dole queue mortally afraid,
Whose forefathers once rode upon the sheep.
The wheezy cough of beery-breathing morn,
They swallow Berocca for their straw-filled heads,
The clock’s shrill clarion, or their arguing spawn,
Once more shall rouse them from beloved beds.
For they no more have savings in their banks,
Both busy partners toil to meet their ends;
No children run to lisp their heartfelt thanks,
They clamour for Air Jordans like their friends.
Oft did their annual jaunt to Bali yield,
Their furrows smoothed by oily massage strokes;
How jocund were their Customs trolleys wheeled!
Their cases bowed by extra grog and smokes!
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,
Their media-fed dreams have learned to stray;
The Holy Grail of the Lotto life
Has taken free out of the word Freeway.
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 2:59 AM UTC
My dad
a tired old guy
drinking **** warm beer
one can after another
in a basement refuge
he called The Shop
He was kind
but very quiet
His silence
a gift of the War
and its visible
atrocities
He didn't spend much time
upstairs
with the rest of us
but we could always
enter his domain
of cigarette smoke
and beery mist
to panhandle some change
or just sit with him
in the half darkness
listening to baseball
on the radio
Until the day
his liver
generated
another
final
plan
Jun 21, 2015
Jun 21, 2015 at 7:17 PM UTC
Take my hand
We will walk the forgotten lanes
Made for iron shod hooves
In the footsteps where sandaled feet
Of the lost legions followed the eagle standard
~
But I see you grow weary of beauty
Of the counterpane fields of green and gold
Miss Marple villages, soft in the twilight
Then come, down to the Romney Marsh
Where time is in tune with your deepest fears
~
We’ll take the old road to the Burmarsh Chimes
By the ruined church of St Augustine, silvered by moonlight
Where communion wine and the Free Traders Brandy barrels
Once rested side by side united under the Lords protection
Where the tolling bell called the dead to evensong
~
There, by the east wall of the Lady Chapel
Tear washed sentinels lean against the west wind
Underneath the wild thyme and harebells
Lay the sad bones of the forgotten children
Come, this is not the place to linger
~
Safe home under the oak beams of the White Heart
Amid farming folk with the smell of the land on them
Setting the stage for beery nostalgia
Sit here by the warmth of the fireside
While I tell you tales of the Night Riders.
Feb 6, 2018
Feb 6, 2018 at 3:28 PM UTC
I was talking to a friend last night, it was idle, beery chat
Footy and his sports car and other simple things like that
We talked about computers and why his was always pish
And also, in the world today how they’re so ubiquitous
He said he was frustrated as his always let him down
She never works, he stated, with a personal pronoun
I said hold on a minute, could you please explain to me
Why use a gender pronoun? Why define as he or she?
He explained it was a woman. It makes irrational demands
That only its creator can truly understand
It’s always talking in the background and I don’t know the code
So sometimes without warning it will randomly explode
It remembers everything I’ve done; I think that this is evil
And this gets me into trouble with its unforeseen retrieval
And as soon as you have got one you then get a big surprise
As you have to shell out weekly keeping it accessorized
Happy with this logic I got up to buy more beer
The barmaid wasn’t happy and she made that fairly clear
I heard that conversation and your friend is talking *****
Okay I said. I’m listening. So tell me what is right
Like a man, you want a good one, but you have to wait for years
But as soon as you’ve committed a better model then appears
They’re supposed to make things easy and minimise mayhem
But half the time the problem to be solved was caused by them
They are full of useless data and they can’t think on their own
When you get one you’re excited, that is until you get it home
They never tell how you look in your favourite little dress
And they are easy to manipulate if you know just where to press
It is good to have a backup because the main one can go wrong
And you won’t get their attention until you turn them on
And no matter what they tell themselves when they have their little chatters
Like certain other things in life its how big they are that matters
Apr 16, 2021
Apr 16, 2021 at 12:30 PM UTC