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Mike T Minehan Apr 2013
I like a whole lip-smacking smorgasbord of words,
such as preposterous and scrumptious,
sumptuous and curious,
roiling, rambunctious and trumpeting,
priapic, satyric and seraphic,
satyriasis and mimesis. Now this mimesis is the imitative
representation of nature and behavior in art and literature,
which is a pretentious way of trying to say what us writers do.
But hey, we don't just mimic things,
we can be sagacious and salacious, too.
Accordingly, I also like *******, which has a liquid sound,
and I'm not being facetious to suggest that
******* has a close connection to callipygous.
Then, for those who are suspicious of the libidinous,
I also like curmudgeonly and bodacious,
loquacious, precocious and pulchritudinous,
lubricious and fugacious,
scripturient, radiance, iridescence and magnificence,
lissome, lithe and languid (but not too limp),
shimmering and diaphanous, effulgent and evanescent,
flamboyant, fandango and flibbertigibbet,
(although this is difficult to say when you’re drunk),
voluptuous and vertiginous, slithery, **** and glistening.
And when I include crepuscular, strumpet and strawberry,
I may as well add whipped cream
as well, because this can be laid on in dollops,
and dollops is really an excellent word
along with slurping and *******, too.
Actually, I'm very flexible about words,
because in my lexicon, low moaning noises are OK, too.
These sounds come from the chord of creation
which is a sort of reverberation from the time of
primordial ooze, which I would like to squish between my toes.
Then there's protozoa, spermatozoa and also
wriggling flagella everywhere. So there.
But words don't even need to make sense,
because sweet nothings can say everything,
and heavy breathing can be ******,
even rhapsodic, ending in delirium.
Titillating should be in here too, because we all need
some tintinnabulation and tickling of the senses sometimes.
I've also decided that fecund is my second favorite word after love.
Fecund sounds abrupt, but it buds magnificently
in ******* and bellies to burgeon in absolute abundance,
everywhere. This brings me to *******, which I like, too.
I'm also partial to proud words, including bold, bulging and
brazen, along with a bit of swaggering braggadocio.
Then I like some big words, like brobdingnagian,
although I hope I'm not sesquipedalian.
Salivate is a word to celebrate as well,
along with onomatopoeia that helps choose some words here.
Drooling is highly evocative, too,
and it's not being provocative to observe that
even weapons drool when they're in the wrong hands.
And I shouldn't leave out *******, as you would expect,
because ****** is a sort of rippling word
that rhymes with spasm. Both sound deceptively simple,
but by golly, they can be intensely gripping.
And really, it's alright to writhe to this occasion
because all of us writers should endeavor
to have some good writhing in our oeuvre.
Even some bad writhing can be lots of fun, too.
But I almost forgot to mention yearning and burning (with desire)
and vulviform, velvet and venerous.
Yippee, yee har and hollerin' along with other exclamations
of exhortatory exuberance should be in this index, too.
Now. The words I don’t like include no, can’t, never,
stop and mustn’t. Also, irascible and intractable,
unmentionable, ineffable, inexpressible, incoherent,
immutable, impotent and impossible.
Then I don't like importune and misfortune,
and I don't know who thought up unthinkable,
because this is an oxymoron.
Inscrutable is also a complete cop out,
especially when there's no such word as scrutable.
Gawping, gaping, cavernous and cretinous, obsequious,
grovelling, pursed lips, circuitous,
obfuscation and isolation, unpalatable,
cruelty, tyranny and hypocrisy,
should also get the heave-**.
And I definitely don't like parsimonious and mendicant,
which are miserable words.
Quitting doesn't get there either,
and shut the **** up and ******* should also be taboo.
Also, hopeless is, really, well, it's hopeless
because it denies hope, and hope is buoyant and boundless.
I mean, sometimes hope is all we have.
But the word I dislike most is ****,
because this is an insulting word, and
to be taxonomical,
the negative score of this word is astronomical.
Hate is also right up there on this list. Hate is abominable
because it tries to destroy love, and love is indomitable.
Indomitable
is the
mightiest
word
of them all.
Yeah. So there.

Mike T Minehan
II felt good after writing this - it was a bit like purging the personal dictionary in my head. I think all of us could write our own list...
Mike T Minehan Jan 2013
She is equipped with sensitive *******
and those other secret places
that ladies give out as prizes
to deserving guys as long as
they adopt the right disguises
of gods, gurus, intellectual giants,
goats, children, father figures, macho brutes,
sugar-daddies, supermen, seminal vessels,
house-repairers, jar openers, jocks, hate objects,
handy shoulders to cry on, emotional support systems,
sensitive, intuitive, yet strong silent types
who can also pay the bills,
tall dark and handsome total strangers,
toy boys, clowns, jugglers, jokers, millionaires,
wood choppers, ******* removers,
bottomless reservoirs of reassurance
or just plain spunky studs when the moon is right.
In fact, anything but woffly wimps.
Oh God, no.  Anything but woffly wimps.
Yes, but what about stoic, steadfast SNAGS,
you know, the Sensitive New Age Guys
who won’t face-shift for a ****?
Yes, well, let's try to sum all this up here right now.
I think that the woman is dripping
with a brimming reservoir
of luscious and sensitive resources on tap for  
the man who can figure out her cosmic kaleidoscope  
of swirling dreams and desires,
which is definitely not to say she can’t be totally independent.
Although please don't be confused.
Friendly boy-next-door types who are handsome,
aren't too hairy, who like to laugh, who have a boyish braggadocio,
who are students, who appear to be intellectuals,
who are not nerds,
and who can **** it in the kitchen, who  can be oh, so cool,
who can convince a maiden that she is in distress,
and is in need of rescuing, while he has
a swaggering hard-on will do, too.
Oooh. You devil.
And if you think this poem is misogynist, misanthropic or myopic,
well, I’ve been around and by now, well,
I really should be panoptic
because I’ve seen all the fads,
and really, it’s sadly too bad
about those poor old
earnest SNAGS.
But you know what?
I don't think I understand anything, because
I'm really a victim of worshiping women.
I'm bedazzled and as blind as the next man, and
yes,
I'm just happy whenever I'm with them.
Yes. A complex topic, this one...
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2016
quite recently, I received an extraordinary complimentary message to one of my poems, from a comrade in arms, dare I call him friend, that cored, scored me.  I post it below.  Not from braggadocio, or vanity, venal poetry sins.  But, it could not stand orphaned,
unrequited and unreciprocated,
for that would be a sin of even greater magnitude,

ingratitude

<>

this poem begins unique,
am struggling with a problem previously
unknown, never before even
close encountered

how do I commence?

poet wonders repeatedly,
a tune on the not-so-natty brain,
set on the machine's "repeat"setting,
this problematical for de minimus - 25 hour day,
this scribbler, this constant nibbler
on the Graham crackers life bestows,
befuddled muddled
for

this is never an issue,
it's the windup, the shutdown,
knowing when enough is enough,
that is the sorest point of his
elongated, can't shut up skill set

it cannot stand, it cannot just hang,
it needs a rabbinical wise,
responsible responsum,
a simple
thank you
holy, holy, holy
insufficient

these words, an almost wet smackdown,
catch me exposed, crossing Sixth Avenue,
against oncoming traffic (naturally),
while on cell phone bad boy,
doing his three R's,#
reading, writing & errrrr, deleting,
(yeah, yeah, I know, I know)
amidst my multiplicity of incoming artillery shells of
automobiles and messages,
this one,
seizing me up, me like a screeching,
near dying engine, broke from being oil-less,
nearly dropping my two large
20 oz. McDonald's coffees which easy
could flood this four lane
thoroughfare

you want to write like this,
are you mad, man?

all I ever es-say is what I see,
throwing in a rhyme or two,
a pinch of a fancy word to impress the
hoi polloi, and plenty salty sweet
to provocate a sensory ah ha
confusion

sir, why write like me,
when you pen this?

"yet all of this could
just as easily be,
the sum of two,
grateful hearts in equal parts,
the beat of two in rhythm thrum,
march in time upon one drum"
^

which pretty much says
what needs saying
all in one perfect stanza humming

but this note, is so far,
way deficient,
a mockery of what the situation requires and is deserving,
so multiple lovely muses redirect me
back to my email,
where I find this waiting,
in repose, this prose,
perfect

A compliment is a complement—
this I know, just as the clock
will always strike midnight
and history repeats. This is how
I can wake up the next morning
and love the world again.
^^

blossoming notion, this is but a complement,
where the line dotted allows free passage
from reader to poet, from poet to poet,
permitting the peaking reciprocity of completion,
and this complement
I accept, unashamedly, profoundly
for this is my 1/1,
for to make a whole, we still require
numerator, denominator,
of equal value

on this basis,
and this basis alone,
I accept your words

when prowling scowling late at night,
or early sun rising, old bones enthroned
in my Adirondack dis-comforter,
will come a-sneaking, a-peaking,
nobody-around-real quiet like,
for another look-see at this kookery,
in my solitary poet's by-the-bay nookery,

the thought comes,
maybe it's time to lay that pen down,
the Israelites have crossed that Red Sea,
dry and on their way to a land of promises,
when sure enough my coffee mug
spills onto an ant hill hard by the beach,
and oops, soiling the soil,
the Lesser Antillean inhabitants making an unholy ruckus,
and oops, ther goes another rubber plant, high hopes, poem aborning,^^^

but sir, be advised,
your excess foolishness is warming,
but we cannot without each other,
march to one drum,
our steps surely mismatched,
it is the reciprocity of
complementary numerical worthies that unites the fractions of us
into a singletary winter pea,
a whole of us,
in order to
"let us love the world again"
yes, a true 'story'
<>
#reading, writing and 'rithmetic
-----------
"some time back
this notion became clear to me.
have wanted to say it since;
this, your words, the perfect segue.

i have come to love
the style of your writing,
so much so as to adopt it,
as my own, though perhaps
in my own tone, voice, and
life experience.

much of how i write today,
I attribute to your influence...
no kidding, no hyperbole,
no gush, no mush, just truth.

whomever taught or influenced you
is to be admired most,
for in the style
i see most encapsulated by yours
is a conveyance that goes
well beyond words,
well beyond mere ideas...
it incorporates heart and emotion,
and more so,
the heart behind the heart,
in a way rather uncommon
to most poetry."^

S. Reimer
"After-math"
<>
^^ "On Being Told I Look Like FLOTUS, New Year’s Eve Party 2014"
by January Gill O’Neil

<>

^^^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S94Bh3Qez9o
Reece Dec 2013
hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay

That interim between dreams and consciousness, that momentary lapse of reality
When slave children don't howl and the wild animals lay tamed in sun traps, weary

Your scattered thoughts betray reality
and you
question everything - now waking
Smiling chief, chirping loud
Your body gathered and prepared
under torchlight in dusty tents
Ingesting iboga and that old familiar numbness overpowers
You've been here for a life now, looking back on your life now
hatasha hullah - dey
vey, okay, huttah, ulay

Witch doctor, tribal medicine, fanning smoke from a wild fire
flashing imagery akin to memories of when life was decadent
you remember the taste of stray rain drops on your upper lip on muggy British summer days
and waking on a beach, bloodied as the sand at your feet is the next recollection, how powerful
the act of reflection, as you recall the mirrors of the sea and your torn body weakened and inept
The gathered village chant in unison and splinter groups fall off beat only to rejoin intermittently

Remember the Burmese boy far from home on the Gabon shoreline
and he informs you of your own death,
and asks you why do you breathe still?

hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
Oh laa, ley ley lahh ley lah
ley hatasha hullah - dey

On some beaten path lost in Angola you carried two packs, food for the world
but you fell starving and spluttered on the rock that looked like your home
Rebels run wild in jeeps black as night, your supplies strewn on rubble grounds
- hatasha hullah - dey
Taken in a flurry, twittering birds in far off trees betray your trust and fly away
in the opposite direction, and the juggernaut jeep catches air over uneven tracks
You were scared and crying under blindfolded eyes and captors jeered, captivated
- parablah nuh parrah
An orchestrated mass of military garbed children with rifles gather you abruptly
when the car stopped with a rumble
And tied to rusted rigs you're gagged and stripped, bloodied your face now
as they beat you and laugh
- vey, okay, huttah, ulay
Congolese giant man, sword in hand and grimacing through bared teeth
Making bold gestures and speaking some inscrutable language
You cannot answer and fear is now in control, you shiver in the ghastly draft
On failure to answer you must be beaten, your back is lashed, repeatedly
- narralah, narrah, nutay
You remain silent but cry in disparity, after shrieks of horror finally escape your barren lips
Through stinging eyes you assess the surroundings after hours of torture when they retire
to their leather beds of shame and innocence faltered, try and remember how to live
- Oh laa, ley ley lahh ley lah
Months must have passed, survive off insects and morning dew on the muddy floor
This African wasteland, time forgotten, child soldiers and lack of humanity is trivial
Always scheming, recollect the armament and through door-way shack trapped light
you see a clear path, and it is good
- ley hatasha hullah - dey
The pinnacle nightfall anticipated arrives, and your skinny wrists released now easily
(their faltering lack of knowledge and abundant braggadocio betray them)
AK laying in moonlight illumination, a sign of God perhaps, but experience proves otherwise
(How cruel the dreams you had of such a gift)
When they spot you leaving, the night lights up, wild crackle of gunfire, heart beats, tribal drums
(To massacre children, such proficiency, the dreams were mindful)
No lapse in concentration, you may ruminate on objective morality in due time
(Crawling through blood and bodies of children, so pure, cadavers tell lies)
The clearing ahead in giant trees, you run and don't look back, praying for no pursuit
(Another genocide committed by a white man, justified perhaps this once)
Weeks pass and you falter only to slurp rain water from Congolese sipping cups the leaves
(Blacking out somewhere in the Republic, or on a border or who cares, as you died long ago)
- vey, okay, huttah, ulay
  ley hatasha hullah - dey

To awake from hallucinogen dreams, and cruel memories linger, it's painful you agree
Witch doctor still sings, lonesome now as the tribe apply ointments and silently pray
The fire still dances to some incredible song and your scars redacted, physical and other
How incredible the mind feeling fuzzy and that insane dream is just that - a dream
You black out again, a common occurrence but upon waking you're free, no tribe exists
With a sheepskin rucksack full of cassava, plantains and sugarcane and cocoa beans
Months pass and you make it to the North, when you leave Africa your body is new
and your mind is stable, no lingering cognizance or frightful thoughts of a forgotten ordeal

You arrive in Turkey, to partake in ***** with nimble girls
and I see you floundering on silken sheets,
My memories were fresh as the nymph on your lap
I write to you a note, and you turn alabaster, moon faced being
I was there always and saw every moment
Your ideals on morality are hazy at best, and to your behest I detest all that you stand for
Is your afterlife so pure, now that bodies litter the forest floor
and do you believe that I am not (a) God
and is this mere poetry, or an indictment of your folly and a warning to all whom engage
but do you not also see that every reaction was an action taken to your original action
and when all is said and done, do you no realise that from the day you were born
you were born a God and that God was born dead
and this is just that interim between expiration and consciousness, that momentary lapse of reality
when slave children don't howl and the wild animals lay tamed in sun traps, weary

hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
Oh laa, ley ley lahh ley lah
ley hatasha hullah - dey
Michael French May 2015
Certainly not the intention
Nobody wants this rodeo
Sudden crisis intervention
Apologies to Tokyo

Like most things it started out small
I now feel like Pinocchio
Seems like things ran into a wall
Apologies to Tokyo

Now perhaps we did overfeed
Seems to enjoy finocchio
That doesn't explain the stampede
Apologies to Tokyo


Next time we will take it slower
try use less braggadocio
keep close by a grenade thrower
Apologies to Tokyo
kyrielle
Of This Whelk Hooked Sluggish Autodidact

Nay, despite failing to make the grade,
     this bluesy well red, duff mute
     average white band hit,
     hard knock school alumnus
jack of all trades master of none bumped along

     *** hole cratered steep pitch
     while riding the bus
bullies skewered kosher me all, cannibalized
     carte blanche timid ego

     brandishing exacto knife
     threatening jugular, cuss
sing maniacally pulling out all stops
     going headstrong for this doofuss

Embracing premonition making me mincemeat
     vis a vis via, Atilla the *** plus
Godfrey Gordon Gustavus Gore
     after diet of worms

     as hors d'oeuvre hug guess
if given a choice, would prefer Loch Ness
monster, or the whale that swallowed Jonah,
     either t'would be a quite im press

heave feted feat, versus being poached,
      roasted, skewered burnt alive
perhaps sautéed to feed additionally,
     the Gothic (Jacks sin) five,
the latter adorned with

     Bandolier prototype, whence they would jive
to Vandals mess sigh ya,
     these last yet another contra band
     to play on command, or risk not being
     he gee beegee bing  a live

all thee above iterated blather spluttered
     as punishment against revive
ving human sacrifice by pence hoove lee donning
     a new jersey wordlessly trumpeting, and strive

ving assiduously as a one man lobbyist,
     and aye willingly negotiate
     to take more'n one wive

even though that would be big o' me decor,
thus a last minute reprieve given
     without axing por favor
and black keys handed over

     to Holy Roman Empire in ****
rubble ruins (over the Weeknd), thus brutish nasty,
     and short tempered surprisingly
     (boot not prematurely) ******* bon jour

foo fighters actually (grand
     aery an nah - did a three sixty)
     feting me guest of *** or,
boosting self esteem, the first time
     since being a kid in a candy store

which poetic digression
     did make quite a dee tour,
and bringing detente amidst marauding
     village people hoop reef furred war.
Don Bouchard Mar 2017
"I think ***** may be a tragic hero,"
A student said,
"Linda tells her boys he is an average man,
And it's time for average men to be attended.
That he gets up and goes to work each day
Is enough to make him a hero."

We listen in the darkened room,
Breaking to think our thoughts aloud
Before we dive back into the pool
Of Loman miseries:
The braggart wearing down,
The cringing rage against
The darning of socks,
Silken stocking memories,
Naughtiness recapitulated.

And sons spinning round
The vortex edge,
Wondering whether
To bail or pledge....

The stage is growing dark,
The audience darker,
Receding from bright memories,
Nobility's idyllic days denied,
Nothing left but the emptiness of pride.

Accepting brassiness and braggadocio,
We lean, breathless beneath skyscrapers,
Accepting commission-only pay,
The emptiness of false news,
And mediocre heroes.

"Boys! The woods are burning!
Can't you understand?
There's a big blaze going all around!"
But no one understands.

We are all dreamers,
Hoping America makes us great again,
Wishing to live the Salesman's life,
Willing to leave Plan B hidden
Behind the fusebox for now...
If only hope remains,
If only champagne wishes,
Caviar dreams besot us in our schemes.

"Nobody dast blame this man!"
Says Charlie, and he is right.
It's tough being out there
Living on a wing and a prayer,
Promising the moon,
Promised the moon,
Age coming on,
No seeds planted,
No sun to shine
On what's left
Of the garden....

A little salary,
A smile,
A shoeshine,
Cannot suffice.

Believing dreams that lie
Is no reason to live;
Seeing the blue sky alone
Is no reason,
If there's nothing to own,
And no place to call home.
Dreamers and Schemers.... *****, Biff, and Happy. Linda Loman. Charlie and Bernard. A woman, and what passes for an empty man....
Harry J Baxter Mar 2014
cracked out
humble with heaps of pride
braggadocio Pinocchio
I haven’t slept in days
so watch the hours turn into haze
blown out of barely open windows
hide me from the world
I’m making a pristine machine - unbreakable
foreseeable as a weapon of poor taste
chasing wasted with chasers
are you shaking?
only with excitement
rage
hunger
My dad says get a job, get an education
so I chose a dead vocation with no hopes of vacations
and everybody is talking about the future as if it exists
it only exists in clenched fists and endless lists
of all the wrong turns you made on the journey
from then to now
I’m eating sacred cow meat - medium rare please
coming up with ways to scare these dumb ******* kids away from apathy
to put the shield over their hearts and the rifle in their hands
but wah wah nobody understands blah blah blah
shut the **** up for once
act like you actually have a pair of *****
even if you don’t
back in the day when we used to rob neighborhood garages of beer
and played with pills like candy
nobody threw tantrums about how unfair it all is
so you think the world owes you something?
the only thing it owes you is one death
so why are you wasting all of our time with your I could have saved the world
cry baby *******
I’m looking for slutty girls
pearl necklace on her checklist
so I can slam her on page verse
me versus the world, right?
left out by all the cool kids
drinking boohoo flavored kool-aid
so I made myself a parody of pretension
cunning, coming, *******
you are the joke so I guess that makes me a punchline
I’m running sprints from the baseline until I’m throwing up the right choices
so continue with all of that angsty impotent sadness
so long as you stay out of my part of town
drumhound Jan 2014
It tastes like purple
dripping of sugar and avoidance
in a circle
of loitering semi-pubescents.
Wooden sticks
precariously cling to
misshapened ice nuggets
in varying stages of licked, bitten and
melted.

School was out.

Hormones were in.

From the other hand
Becky sipped the ****** of
Strawberry Hill.
She knew things
she shouldn't know.
I wanted to know them too.
Looking over kitschy glasses
her gaze announced
(much to a young boy's excitement and fear)
she was bound
to kiss me.

At the awkward crossroad of
popsicle innocence and cheap wine
I stood clutching
my little piece of lumber
fighting sticky fingers
and the urge
to drink my first liquor
from her lips.

There is no such thing as
12 year old mojo.
The boy's experience
was only under-dated
by the alcohol in the pretty container.
She didn't care
about mojo or
decorum or
crowds.
She cared about RIGHT NOW.

She was an evangelist for the cause,
asking forgiveness
instead of permission
for her lust
...and I was being converted.

Hitchless
she walk into the face
of a clueless child,
tilted her head
and baptized his mouth
in ***** and braggadocio.

It didn't taste like purple anymore.

It tasted like America pie and graduation.

Her unseen signature
authenticates my diploma.
I am still a patriot.
And a warm piece still reminds me
of Strawberry Hill.
I have never had another drink of Strawberry Hill because it could never taste as good as this moment.
Aaron Tangkengko Jun 2014
Sometimes


Sometimes I lie awake staring at time.
As if at one point you were crying at the impact of birth.
and then you finish
and you're in tears over anything
A man would blow his brains out for.
And the trigger mechanisms are simple

So it closes in.
The crinkling stares of so many children
Who can't even imagine themselves in me.
And it is I,
I'm the one in make-believe,
Only dreaming and dreading of the future.
Like a heavy wool blanket bedding with you in a heat-wave.
My own until it becomes the crucifix;

The point of martyrdom of the heretic's soul.

And somewhere I have dreams of catching lost time
Of an existence of perfect contentment,
A life without waste or remorse.

time flows like mercury…

Breaking and gliding away
Rushing with unforeseeable motion
Into a horizon that breaks
into sunrise to sunset
In the shortest, disbelieving , stunted, stutters of breath.

The times you find when you're malleable.
When you look far enough back in time.
When you try and find that breaking point.
Where your idealistic self broke down.

Like a body collapsing over a sleeping foot.

the point where disillusion became a new ******* eating hyperreality
Where the idea became a living stain swathed in a sheet of toilet paper you stole because you couldn't afford to buy your own. Where living and eating, filling the fridge, became the maniacal obsession. When it began to devour all the space the Truth was taking up,

like an orca charging a shoreline,

like a bad piece of art you bought for cheap to fill a void in the room.

Your liver fills with beer and your lungs are lit by a six dollar pack of nooses.

day in day out.

You find where you got yourself all chewed up.
When you're laying in bed with all your prized possessions
***** laundry filling the floors like empty husks, shed skin
deflated costumes of the person you've always wanted to be.
When you realize that hour glass needs turning over
But you've already done the deed and the *** end of the vial is burying the best of you in dirt.

Where selling soul for *** comes easy.

too afraid of the becoming
too comfortable with the being.

Cowardice comes easy.



That's where it all comes together to fall apart.

To sell your soul
You don't need a prayer
You don't need to be offered the world
You don't need the love of your life in the fold


You


Just need an illusion of certainty
A moment, a shadow
Of doubtless prospect
Just the belief that what you think is coming around the corner
is around the corner

You sell your soul
You sell your heart,
your *****,
your spine,
your genius,
your brain,
your sanity

Just to feel at home.

Sell it for a guarantee on cigarettes,
***** and a couch to meditate your guilt on.
A bed to sleep in where remorse is a dance done tossing and turning.

A bone dance.

A roof over heads.

Rent in pockets.


Zen

in a hovel hole of holy indiscretions.

The devil was an empty fridge and a stomach eating us thin!
We walk the streets as Concubines of wandering flesh
Paid and obliged,
obligated and pained
Marching with an anemic braggadocio, and a wounded dignity
Everyone's on their knees swallowing pride in gulps.

We wake up young and tired, vice-ridden, punched-in and broke.
waged into hypocrisy with all of our valiant and cumbersome notions of ancient virtue. Read to us in bed time fantasies and fairy-tales of things dreamed not meant to be.
And wagered into all that nothingness of essence, where
Vividly ****** in the violet haze of nightmares entranced in the violence and fury of the guillotine mind,
We converse in the language of our new and violent times.

It's become that Dream and Dread sit one letter off.
Dreaming and dreading, dressing as drunks draped in the dreary.

That's it there.

There's my poetry.

The extinction of the New Romantics.
The blood drenched fist harnessed in the beguiling, gilded, golden tapestry

the smearing of the ink upon the neon lights.
The weight.
Harry J Baxter Oct 2013
I could sit my *** down
and write a hundred ******* poems
and not even touch on the subject of *******
or I could write an ode to the obscene
and here it praised as beauty
call me cocky
but you haven't seen it yet
humility tastes like vegetables
and I've never had time for 'em
give me a felt tip
and I'll make you smile, laugh, cry, and come
within four minutes
and I'll write those cutsie ******* poems
that make your older sisters say
awwwwww
like a text from a girl
saying hey
with about a million y's and ten emoticons
you like me
I don't know why
maybe it's maybeline
or maybe it's the keystrokes
stroking your ego
while I throw mine in the laundry
I wasn't raised to be bragger
but I wasn't raised not to be
wasn't raised to stop and see
the people smelling roses
or striking different poses
my smile is like similes
my method is a metaphor
my ***** soon is spilling on the bathroom floor
take this braggadocio
and put it in your back pocket
I don't need it anymore
and I don't want it
Jabbering Ignominious Hypocrite Gabbles - against the backdrop of gross unbridled viscous wracking zealotry bruiting extinguishing inherent national trust...  

Poetic Introduction:

I wax and wane rhapsodic
plus prosaically politic
aware severe erosion
of American democracy
over run by narcissistic
over stuffed ego-freezer,
whose vocabulary
extremely laconic
foe swash buckling braggadocio
commander in chief
not gun shy
to brandish (hugely
bully like) jingoistic
tirade unleashing horrific
banshees more'n 10, 000
foo fighting maniacs
(nemesis of liberty) fatalistic
to sanctity of
United States democracy
throw back at him bigly,
his woeful treachery,
quasi xenophobic, tragic,
and lunatic bred anarchy!

Each ticking second of every single day, the pensive, doughy face execrably debased “dunderhead” criminal commander in chief (trumpeting acrimonious, calumnious, egregious...yakking), while donned in gay apparel) trumpeting lunatic, jingoistic, ideology imbues heretic catalysts.

Thou art unduly seething, quaking, and oozing mercurial kindling ideological glommed ethos of mine. These atrocious blaspheming, castigating, denigrating, excoriating, fulminating gross humiliations imply jerkiness, kookiness, lunacy.

No! Not for one more term can this acidulous, indecorous Mandates need outspoken politicians quickly removing this utterly vile wicked Xerses.

Thus spoke Zarathustra (without blandishment) to me, a gluten and monosodiumglutinate free, NON-GMO non-alarmist, nonestablishmentarian, nor ham aye a nihilist.

Yukon just **** sitter me a copacetic, energetic, ironic language lover (English is ma lingua franca late mother tongue), who waxes poetic, but tall so one babbling, creaking, and dabbling dis arming marine naval (gazing) scrivener expressing stance toward thee present lord save us (Te Deum) included despite admitting to espouse atheistic tendencies.

This “FAKE” president aces at blabbing acerbic, caustic, empathetic, fatalistic hoary jabbering mishmash!

I aim to affect a chain reaction while this paunchy dumpling remains in office, whereat he flirts, debases, colludes, with amoral, diabolical, execrable horrible ingrates.

His see-through debonair, imposter nuanced orbit poseur quite revealing sans, (inviting guests, sans agents provocateurs to join his all-star ensemble of mailer daemons, lampoon kickstarting imps of the pervert further underscores this delusional faux equalitarian huckster as an unqualified commander in chief!

A flourishing gesticulation (hocus – pocus) kindles, flickered and evinces braggadocio. This pantomime a charade, facade, inlaid limp odiousness. Via compounding gall, he makes official indiscriminate ******* legislation all the exempting himself and kin.

Smug slinking, sneering, sporting antics attempt to cocoon diabolical, horrible laws (automatically abrogating, evading, flaunting every decree, whereat he affixes his signature). This absolute zero with dangerous liaisons significantly, knowingly, and increasingly shortens the metaphorical burning fuse.

He sets the figurative and literal global shaky sphere stage setting off a global conflagration. If privy with box office seat, you will rub shoulders with guest appearances sans, worldwide webbed sheep in wool clothing faux allies.

These Janus faced grungy beastie boys, cagily, edgily cadge facile self-possessing knack to acquire fruitful knick knacks (paddy whacks give their dog a bone), which forsaken good and plenty treats blithely, blindly, blandly exchanged at the emotional, financial, and spiritual expense of American taxpayers.

This collusion to fiddle (while Rome burns), gamble and mollycoddle with turncoats actually, demonstrably, generously favors these chameleon nemeses.

Poetic Polemic Bookends this rant:

Though poor (financially),
this figurative anchorite
doth no longer
wanna feel powerless
against bicameral blight
thus approaching 2020 election...
uneasily doth excite.
Derrick Jones Aug 2018
This is a poem about hip hop, a rap about rap, I’m getting meta while you eat your wrap with feta because these poets free their words from paper, caped crusaders spitting flows from their domes and putting it to music, evoking emotion and causing commotion by amplifying their words, meditation through creation, showing their wit by going *** for tat in a rap battle, a freestyle of thought, craft a verse and drop it like it’s hot, they refuse to throw away their shot as they create a mixtape of melody and meaning, it doesn’t have to be demeaning, braggadocio is part of the show, part of the culture, we all flee from the vulture of death and if words give you armor then rap harder, better, faster, stronger, flex on em with mental might and fight until you shine bright, when the words strike like lightning, frightening and enlightening, you feel alive, driving fast, the words are at the wheel, tires squeal as you peal off the street, smile on your face as you blast into outer space.

My words trapped on paper, musically handicapped, but I wish I could adapt so I could convert these rhymes to rap but for now you have to fill in the gaps with the music of your mind, the sound of your soul, the rhythm at the root of being alive.
Tim Deere-Jones Feb 2021
A small man with a big smell
when his seldom washed clothes were drying after rain.
Stubble chin, fish eye, loose lip
but always ready for0 the tankard's rim,                                    
especially if you were buying.

One of the dark ones, relics of the Bronze Age,
whose ancestors had thrown their seed,
thin grain upon the small and bitter acres that he worked.

Only the rocks grow well in the fields of the grey hills!

At first I thought him diminished,
crushed by the land itself,
it's possession a cancer devouring
and defeat an old coat lashed round his middle with wire.

But drunk once, on a market day,
lowing and jammed like stalled beasts
into the FARMERS bar, he stumbled,
hugged me close to steady himself
and roared out loud to the heedless herd,
with arm outstretched, ******* to the world,
"****** you boys! I am still here!

Nobody heard but me,
whose ear was riven by that yell
and sprayed with rich spittle.

True though, despite the braggadocio of beer,
with the grain of him deep and compacted
like the rocks he fought, he did endure.
here's a memory of a man i knew for a while when living and working in the far west of Cornwall
Wrapped up in the Christmas holiday spirit,
I surmise doth allow
nationally collective obliviousness
     to steer ship of state
     (these United States)
to suffer retaliatory browbeat
ting activates, detonates, generates
     je nais sais quois maliciousness

     upon North American consciousness
from wickedly vehement uproarious tirades
the "FAKE" president doth crow,
whereby every word uttered
     by the misfit mealy mouthed madman
in the Oval Office directly
impacts Lady Liberty, sans dow
wager even when the brash,

     defensive, haughty...commander
in chief doth raised by alternately
by one or both colored eyebrow,
which nonverbal hostile
     body language triggers
     concomitant domino fallout
     to devastating effect,
     whereby analogous nee

     palpable invisible reverberations
trigger thee threat
of global mortal Kombat flow
war moves the dial on
the Doomsday Clock to foreshadow
the stark realization of glow
bull thermonuclear conflict to ***
var ominously over planet Earth,

which scenario haint Noah Joe
king matter, cuz
more'n juiced **** sapiens know
wingly, would be decimated,
     where from Noel fierce
riding hobby horse, could
weather thee irrevocable low
down, once bombs away loosed,

and poised to strike
every fibrous marrow
with an irreversible tendon cee,
yet some hardy
species might narrow
lee escape radioactive fallout,
     and blithely usurp meaning overthrow
this most menacing creature,

whose opposable thumb didst pro
pell the nasty, short tempered,
and mean minded
to upset status quo
and shred of a fatalistic,
graphic, and horrific roadshow
no Wizard of Oz (zee us born)
     negating, obliterating, and pulverizing

     the uninhabitable landscape
     with burnt offerings
much more frightful than scarecrow,
which worst case scenario,
could explode today or tomorrow
leaving no trace of unlovely bones

     merely mass cremated powder,
hence forsaked salvation
from... say Beto
O'Rourke, whose actively
democratic gumption joisted paradigm
grim fate recklessly
(hypothetically) did veto.
Brent Kincaid Aug 2017
****** rednecks and tabloid editors,
Choosing a big-mouthed wussy,
Voted into office a ****** predator who
Brags he grabs women by the *****.
He goes on and on about himself
Blows that he is highly educated
He only tells lies, braggadocio, or
Unpresidential rot that is R-rated.

He boasted he could shoot
Someone dead in the street
Even that ugly deed would
Not cause his defeat.

It turned out to be
Unfortunately true!
That’s the kind of thing
Ignoramuses will do:
They vote some dingaling
No matter how disgusting
And decide this grifter
Is definitely worth trusting.

He's just bright enough to see
That suckers love a good show
So he’ll dance and sing to them
For three and a half years or so.

He said he keeps the best
People to back up his boasts,
And when he chooses one
His accomplices all toast.
It won’t be very long until
As his TV show has inspired,
He’ll open that ugly mouth
And snarl out “You’re fired!”

He knows he can keep on
In his lucrative term of office
If he just keeps the rich happy, and
Fools who can’t see he’s bogus.

He’s busily going about
Taking the rights of the poor
And wadding all of them up
Then kicking them out the door.
The only people he wants to succeed
Are him and those ***-kissers
Who hang with him out of greed.

He's just bright enough to see
That suckers love a good show
So he’ll dance and sing to them
For three and a half years or so.
seminal squirt didst sanctify
   an anonymous boulder
when mercury dipped below
   hashtag mark registering colder

than usual temperatures circa
   winter of year 2000 in proximity
   to the sacred chapel
   at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania

   (house zing carillon player)
   rifling thru manilla folder
first inn search of apropos
   mailer daemon ***** muse sic,

   thence finely pitted secretly riddled with holes
   encoded sheet threaded thru bell jar contrivance
   sans, handy dandy mechanical holder
to accompany prurient powerful ******* pang
   bubbling (like the **** kens), and didst smolder

especially, cuz a free ranging
   NON GMO, **** in boots
hello kitty sauntered
   (emanating pheromone heat
   hand dill lee pronouncing feral passe faux foots),

dripping, seething with hormonal secretion
   uttered via vow welled roots
gluten and monosodiumglutinate free *****
   hapt tabby on the prowl ready
   for par laid view ****** piqued Saint Peter

   to enter heavenly labial shoots
rather than suffer frost bite
the above mew wing tigress attempted  
   to keep toasty warm
   ('thru minuscule tunnel

   lacked add **** quit light)
prickly endowment fired
   raging testosterone
   with braggadocio, brio, bravura and might

owing pretentiously pusillanimous feline
   fur reed black as night
hood hit attempt to cap cha moxie *******
   thus ensuing a mutually satisfactory plight

until a park ranger back his utility truck  
   than gregarious, felicitous, erogenous
then quick as greased lightening
   ***** creatures disappeared out ta sight.
missanthrope Jul 18
Look, here I am
Reclined, legs akimbo,
Outwardly bulging to lordosis.
A pint of blueberries on my hips, form
A **** train through my lips

I had been honored by the Hoarding Board:
Primly donuts, princely Kinder,
Father Belvita, priggish pretzels.

They were folded
With teeth, into acid.
They're all memorialized, in thrall
Wrappers nested within wrappers

Yes. Here I am
Churning away
My heart pulsing lust
My fingers settling dust.

Your concerns in front of the mirrors
Of dressing rooms, of fitness-gymnasiums
Petty.

I'm above all that,
I ate all of that.
Pretty.
Brian Mangels Feb 2017
At first I didn’t understand you, in time I came to accept and embrace you.
Oh the times we shared. You impressed and amazed me.
I wanted to capture your substance, your flavour, your artistry.
You helped me express myself, my habits, personality, preferences. Even weaknesses.
You sated me.
Physically and extravagantly. I devoured you.
And yet I desired more. To have you alone was not enough. I became boastful.
I tarnished our experience by gloating unreasonably. Our moments reduced. Familiarity gone. My appetite had consumed our love.
Alas we were nauseated.
The affair had run it’s course. It wasn’t you who changed. It was me.
It was gluttony.
I will heed the lessons I’ve learnt. Content myself with intimacy. Not braggadocio.
And I’ll fulfil myself again. It’s my desire. I may even over indulge. For I am weak to the pleasures.
But it cant be with you. It will be exclusive.
I WILL be exclusive!
Each meal I’ll sit and reflect on the times we had, but know our shared moments are gone.
Goodbye food photography. You will be posted no more.
(no braggadocio! modest rodomontade scored triumphantly!)

Unbeknownst to me, a generic human ape,
an unpleasant surprise
     swished down like an ominous cape
awaited and near smothered me drape

ping that October morning, where no escape
presaged via frisky black cats
     chasing shadows on fire escape
crossed my path after walking under a ladder
     where ice **** ravens didst jape!
**********
Wheels of injustice applied via de
fender, sans Johnny Cochran forced ee
year splitting amidst general public fee
ver rush to absorb disbelief shell shock hee
ret tickle non guilty conviction from key

ping popular culture spell bountious lee
really exhausted viz three ring me
dee ya circus (June 1994 – October 1995) pre
vail ling obvious evidence irrelevant, thus re
deeming O.J. Simpson to strut guilt free

from emotionally charged trial. I awoke
as usual and performed customary bespoke
oblations vis a vis half-hour plus choke
hold asphyxiation meditation, okey doke
shuteye discipline followed daily to evoke

calm, cool, and collected trance zen dental
bliss before motoring on with gist of gentle
lee presented vignette, though me mental
state did not shift gears into a rental

modus operandi, but only partially new
trawl eyed , cuz the then fiancé (one mew
zing chic chick i.e. Abby Robin Zison), Jew
dish us lee spent the night
     at our transitional grew

some domicile) immediately nsync to report do
tuff lee (at the Goddard School)
     raced like a Chew
Bach ha's Dickensian protagonist back up Badoo
two flights of stairs. Like eponymous Aloo

men hum mushing spry feline woman out bitta bing
bitta bang (clanging like hells bells) ding  
donging, she immediately flew back fling
all four feet eleven of her harried style jing

ling in an agitated state she set foot to go bob  
bing out the door intent
   (as iterated) driving to her job,
and in combination pantomime
   and words crisis did lob

asper like a bot to me,
     she attempted to communicate rob
bing her unsuspecting fount of thespianism
   tub air gritty modicum
   of rationale from putrid slob

name of Leslie (the lunatic landlady)
     thine paramour conveyed clarity mouth ajar
after surmising urgent news
     required automatic action to un bar
driveway, where I parked car,

the previous night surreptitiously venal far
from rational rapscallion most definitely har
bored an axe to grind, and locked Ford Escort par
**** shinned within chain linked fence - war

fore suggestion got made
     (from future bride)
to confront landlady,
     and sternly insist and mildly chide
corrective action taken,

     yet this storyteller defied
said suggestion, and brainstormed
    with betrothed asthma guide
averting compromising neither of our pride

and prejudice respective, sans stevedore
managers would not let us slide
gnome hatter, how we could not
     escape deprecation
     no matter how much we tried.

Prior to heading off to bed
     the prior night, I deigned
to express likelihood to landlord/owner
     thyself and pseudo spouse needed to find

another place to live. The major reasons
for vacating premises? Her grind
ding cigarette no ifs, ands
     or buts smoking mind
less ness ranked (on par
     with chimney didst wind

     burning wood smoke
at full blast) as primary source
     of revulsion did provoke,
and aye came across with homespun folksy
sensitive mien, as a simple country bloke
I expressed honest sentiment at being
extremely averse (where hacking awoke

     the future wife)
     from second hand carcinogen(s)  
     extant within cancer sticks. Asphyxiation deafen
knit lee found me choking half to death even
putting towel under the door, or

     additionally keeping
     bedroom window wide open,
the malodorous nicotine wisps ambled - pen
     knit trait ting, wending, curly cued,
     and filtered thru fabric with mischievous yen.

No matter, the twisting tendrils of tobacco found
their way into ole factory nasal cavity ground
zero, sans health conscious holistic being hound
did, what constituted one deranged dame
     the SPCA ought to impound.

Another factor fueling foul accommodations yin
     wanna know offset fine tuned win
Dixie yang,
     which odoriferous torture constituted

     nauseating odor of cat *****
and litter boxes smelt worse than sin,
cuz, they never got cleaned of feline ***** matter
     near visible as a unsightly dangerous shark fin.

Upon summoning effort
     and energy to communicate
bona fide concerns, she responded
     and didst denigrate

with contempt fiery madness irate
psychotic malicious venomous vile
     as dead body snatcher mate
and then insidious wheels

     of malice with tongue flames
crackling, popping, and snapping
     from out her reptilian pate
     began to turn more sharply

     amidst ghoulish clatter and path
     of destruction on her tabula rosa slate
with more danger than
     along axis of evil tete a tete.

She madly paced back and forth
     across maligned envisioned aisle
a small patch of uncluttered space in main foyer
     witnessed seething rage wherein

     carpeted floor boards,
     an imperfect circle shod feet didst dial
no doubt internally
     plotting vengeful strategic guile.

Castigations, fulminations, and insinuations ague
gulled out her mouth
     noxious fumes left exit pronto flew
ludicrous lacerations
     from fiery dragon lady did spew

while yours truly soundly slept
     and without incident dreamt edenic view
she unwittingly trappings to annihilate  Xandu
some personal vendetta. After I washed, dressed as a zoo

keeper headed downstairs,
     the malicious scheme she did hatch
out back became a living reality,
     an empty house doors hooked with latch

(Samir, the other occupant) left hours earlier no match
to tangle with wicked witch absented premises natch
eerily echoed every footstep trod one patch,
after another
     patent leather slippers paused to scratch

an niche 'pon second landing
     (to confirm a strong hunch)
that nary a soul heard nor seen,
     probably out to lunch,

no raving ranting banshee
     demented drunk as punch
No zombie like entity appeared from the “DO
NOT DISTURB” sign affixed
     outside sleeping area, aye did scrunch

brow to compress insight,
     where mangy catatonic felines
     shared coterie holograms suddenly jumped out
     from virtual reality cat n' app cradle
     swishing tails shorn like cat o' nines

mewing obscenities (within/ out
     computer screen, ominous signs,
sans phantasmagoric phantom) lurking
     like a lunatic swing from vines.

Nonetheless, I continued to tread
     down dimly lit said
lower level with glimmer
     of optimism to bolster lead

din heavy mood crossing fingers
     spare set of skeleton keys
     (with cross bones and skull head)
nearly always left tantalizingly
     dangling in unused door latch, twas cred

double wish, thus spirit within me soared
and just as quickly sank to abyss of psyche moored
     sensation felt like poured molten lava oh Lord
Guess what? No such luck. Oh,
     she definitely would not a ford

carelessness, and took precautions okay
hiding temptation to make a getaway
Well…I stepped outside
     to assess situation. Blimey cray
zee myopic eyes forced to glean deadbolt
     found gate shut tight, thence a feeble bray

escaped parched lips, when lo...vix
teased and cross myopic eyes,
     no doubt played tricks
holy glory. Ah, a handsaw
     carelessly got left and altered mix
matched tool chest in plain view, a sudden fix

but prior to acting on the plan, quite do able
I made a few telephone calls
     first telephonically cable
hub rate, and firstly contacted employer

     told tale more unbelievable than a fable
thence to local police
     in order to file complaint against
     goon bonkers malicious monstrous label

quick as the brown fox
     jumps over the lazy dog
escape attempted perilous hell grog
ghee nightmare commenced after placing

     phone back on cradle, whence nog
     'gin set fingers to twitch busily
     sawing into one steel link,
    (an effort aye did slog)

thru to break at one linkedin steel segment
barricading trusty Ford Escort
     so this fellow could hightail with pent
up adrenaline out of nefarious
     steely web and test a mint...,

     whence surge of adrenaline
coursed from head to toe,
     my heart pounded not so gent
lee ready to burst from chest,
     and palms perspired profusely
with unexpected accursed of evil incarnate
     vis a vis hell bent agent

provocateur ready to pounce
     and deliver violent
retribution, which blows
     from blunt heavy object,
   would invariably render me unconscious
   courtesy of cerebral rent.

For better than worse, a kind face
of destiny smiled from countenance grace
sing unseen karma
     smiled smooth as sateen or lace
upon my essence as shaking hands

     furiosly moved saw handle
     back and forth dozens of times until…
THE CHAIN BROKE AND SET ME FREE
     now fickle finger of fate
     got me ought ta this place!
Robert Ippaso Feb 2021
What qualities make a ‘successful man’,
Is it the tambor of his voice,
Some lofty goals, a lifelong plan,
A steering hand, his knowing choice.

Can compassion play a part
Or is that interpreted as meekness;
Is it wrong to show a heart
Without labeling it as weakness?

Does strength need to be paraded
A steely front for all to see,
Is authority degraded
When others sometime don't agree?

An old proverb said as much:
"A wise man is one who listens"
Few have had the Midas touch
And those that did have breached divisions.

Three traits renown - the deadly cluster,
The very ones to spell out doom,
Bravado, Braggadocio and sheer Bluster,
For all they bring is downright gloom.

So where's the rulebook, that golden fleece
To show the way and light the path,
That font of knowledge and inner peace,
Assured success without the wrath?

Where it exists is inner strength,
A willingness to learn whilst teaching too,
Consistency and grace to any length,
Embracing all of us, not simply you.
In the age of Trump a redefinition of a successful man may be required to help current and future generations.
Sinister glacial dissolution verge
huge jagged icebergs reverberate
nature extemporizing mock sinister
debacle, sans bot mot, braggadocio,

rodomontade, et cetera distinct, ear splitting,
fractal heaving snap, crackle and pop,
cacophonously fabulous, incredulously
humongous, and thunderously voluminous

cleanly cut, and/or jaggedly serrated,
sheared into brittle spears whence
huge packed floes crash into sea
possibly loosing significant tidal wave

irrefutably, evidently and directly linkedin
with global warming, and greenhouse effect
removed at safe distance within my man
cave burrow, which doubles daily asthma

fall out shelter (ideally scrutinizing human
kind imprimatur seated facing an array
of sophisticated computer modules)
such albedo blinding, igloo jettisoning,

and veto wanting phenomena will induce
one to become slack-jawed at ice escapades
exploits of gigantic iceberg expanses
(some the size of Rhode Island)

eerily fascinating, grimly haunting,
yet inherently jarring since such dissent
against he incursion evoked via humankind
invariably spell terrestrially grammatically,

environmentally, and climatologically
dread locked hair raising drama scientist
worth his/her salt could hedge bet against,
asper predicting dire consequences

survival of thee primate perhaps once
exclusive fictional terrain, and silly
raconteur fabrication of keen
imaginative grade school pupil,

which undeniable, lamentable, and
irrefutable data imposes gamut of
meteorological scenarios, none
bode optimal for the human race

as well other innocent flora and fauna
particularly latter plenti full species
directly, whose IdentityGuard under
mined when an I opening illusion

inimitable influx, and inescapable increase
turns out to be no trickery prestidigitation,
loopy hallucination or daddy long legs action
to entertain claque of eager amusing children

who, when said hypothetical boys and girls
reach adulthood will live in World Wide Web
bereft of animal and plant diversity
whereby major metropolitan areas

uninhabitable, though arctic vortex
subjected lands once impounded with miles
thick slabs of frozen water might offer
temperate boot ness esse sea re: loch haven

though at this schlepping shoulder shrug
(physically and chronologically) all odds
viz zit ting future generations only suitable
within the realm of rumination, speculation,
and tantalization.
Webster’s Word of the Day challenge
Each day a new word is given

BLT has issued this challenge
Use Webster’s Word of the Day
in your poem
After you post your poem
let BLT know

In the notes of your poem indicate
The word of the day Challenge
The word and definition
I try to put the date of the word,
but sometimes I forget

Then notify BLT
He will read the poem to
make sure it meets the HP standards
Then  he will post it to his site
Then BLT notify you that he did so
This way your poem
gets additional exposure

You can see by the haphazard way
I laid out the instructions
These are not strict guidelines
This should be FUN

I find it a challenge at times,
To use the word on the exact day
Yet, curiously many times
I can incorporate a word
into my current poetry
that I would not have used before.

It’s challenging and fun when it’s done
It’s a game that has opened
up a brand new door daily.
Putting my braggadocio aside
Personally There are times when I have felt I have an inadequate vocabulary

This challenge is a self confidence booster
Also a way to improve your language
and add a new word to your lexicon.

A heart felt . Thank You
To BLT For creating this game
It’s truly been a challenge and adventure
BLT word of the day challenge
Haphazard 3-30-24
No apparent plan, order, or direction
Bonus words
3-29 Braggadocio
A brash boating annoying or exaggerating appearing more then you are
Lexicon a person’s vocabulary and branch of knowledge
You do not need to use more than one word per day but it’s cool when you can.
Arlene Corwin Nov 2017
WHY MOURNING

Do you know anyone who doesn’t die?

Who hasn’t died?

Who will not die?

Not I.



How to accept?

Not mourn?

Think through to not have pain,

(For pain seems fruitless), for

To not accept

Is like rejecting sun and moon,

Existence, proven, measured, seen.

Do I lament when atoms split?

Grieve, regret,

Have sadness that I can’t get over.

Nover

Doesn’t.



Pain [we have] when others die –

That ‘other’ human, cow or dragonfly.

The local forester sawed down a fir

Which was for sure,

A hundred fifty years or more.

I mourned,

Stump and its rings all it passed down.



Is it absence or remembrance?

Is it longing for a something now a non-thing non-existing?

Is it clinging to a someone

Over whom we have no power,

Never had? Could it be wrong-er?

Fate and destiny his, hers or its

Through all of time and history.



I cannot think of one good reason

Vindicating mourning.

Were we meant for suffering?

Though I [clearly] cannot clarify,

We’re seeing wrongly,

Thinking strongly wrongly,

Wrought of ego’s braggadocio,

The hallowed hoaxer of emotions.



Nover: me, born Arlene Faith Nover

Why Mourning 11.4.2017

Birth, Death & In Between III; Nature Of & In Reality; Revelations Big & Small; Circling Round Reality; Circling Round Egos;

Arlene Corwin
Two days ago it as All Hallowed Saints Day, or the Day Fo The Dead.  It prompted this.
Messianic Don found tarnished appeal
trumpeted bluster thwarted
with muted (hip hip hooray) Democratic zeal
played (on microscale) like quashed
ill fated braggadocio big deal

bombast, sans General George Armstrong
Custer's last stand,
viz Little Bighorn, achilles heel,
where Native Americans
showed deadly steel

against cocksure doodling
haughtiness didst conceal
Yankee sited in cross hairs,
who got comeuppance,
whence his notorious
reputation did never heal,

thus markedly high light
ting (albeit in deadly fashion) might
whooped, undermined, and
served just desserts,
when forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne,
and Arapaho tribes did unite

defending their turf against
7th Cavalry Regiment of the
United States, mauled as ****** sight,
which justified comeuppance,
and whipped up white

settlers fury like an inferno doth ignite
combustible material showing
no mercy toward "red men"
unleashing brutal, short
and nasty genocidal spite

long a tragic footnote in history
proves tummy at hefty price
that present swaggering presidential chieftain
more'n halfway thru administration thrice
occasions brought third "shut down"
(the first time in more than 40 years)

during his opprobrious term,
now got meted "no dice"
cuz commander in chief usurped, provoked,
and kickstarted retaliatory actions, I.C.E.
suspect, where staunch stonewalling tactics
unexpectedly found paunchy big boy lice

sensed to shame, name and blame Congress
i.e. as he ****** forward power,
and hood did launch
bully tactics doth evince,
how he does not play "nice"
demanding five billion dollars for

pet project wall barring Mexicans
(and other asylum seekers south
of the border) did not entice
unanimous concurrence thus sets device
sieve ness roundly shows
Trump doth need strong cussed hard advice!
Atheistic beneficent credo,
dogmatically evokes fundamental
gnostic humanistic invocations,
joyously kickstarting literary

métier, native oeuvre
pulsating quintessentially,
rudimentary schema
traversing utilitarian vectors,
winsomely xing yore zen.
*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *    
     boastfulness, haughtiness, pomposity....,
     nor beg for any red cent
though methinks housing,
     donning, adopting...,
     a mephistophelian air proffers
     more beneficial cree dent
     shills, especially when combined
     with healthy dose

     of chutzpah fosters invincible
     unprincipled dogmatic elan,
     finessing, gilding,
     and honing event
chew wool machiavellian
     braggadocio with fervent
sea, sans this generic,
     kinetic, and laconic (ha)

     of Lix orbitz (around
     sun) dry gent,
who downplays his aptitude,
     cerebral enlightenment,
     and native intelligent
potential, cuz humility more
     appealing to me,
     asper applicably analogous

     with demeanor of Clark Kent
than (say...) disreputable, horrible,
     and lamentable disposition
     blatantly evinced
     by mal level lent
quasi metaphorical pyromaniac
     igniting proxy wars meant
to dispel any shadow of a doubt,

     that trumpeting self righteous
     privileged machismo coven nant
only allows, enables, and
     strictly provides access of
     materialistic trappings
     (such as opulent
metaphorical arena i.e. on par
     with Mar-a-Lago Club pent

house suite), and vamoose
     with dirt poor dill link quint
     (viz Matthew Scott Harris),
     he hook can barely pay rent
(true not "FAKE"), where moost
     of his measly money spent
(albeit on the bare necessities,
     which social security

     disability allowance
     (monthly) support, may force him,
     and the missus
     out in the cold
     shivering in a tent,
or he may forego
     surviving (like Euell Gibbons)
     on wild roots, bark,

     berries...(shelving) camping,
     and scout out
     a prime heating vent
most like in the
     city of brotherly love
     after poverty doth reign
     nasty, short and brutish

     suffocatingly crush,
     extinguish flickr of hope,  
     and flush away optimism
     every fibre of mine existence
     from within this decrepit body
     life source runneth went.
Weather beaten cap'n,
     and watertight bewitched craft
time tested since maiden voyage
     (circumnavigating the globe
back in the day
of my youth),
I ranked tough as a pitbull,
     when severely pitted

     against raw elements
     of swiftly tailored,
     harried stylish nature
     against leathery faced
     reptilian skin, hard drinking
(actually as corked
poetic convenience - vermouth
arbitrary bottle of choice

     if for no other reason,
     than to rhyme
     with the above line),
and tobacco spitting, while

colorfully swearing as an uncouth
Furies (of Agamemnon) fighting (tooth
     and nail) Pirate,
     where rickets, scurvy,
and thrice unconscious,
currently ample proof
could not forsooth
bring me to

     Davy Jones's locker,
     cuz I never wanna
get relegated to an underwater
whale schooled booth,
this raconteur can nonchalantly,
glibly, and blithely attest,
with braggadocio, despite
no warm welcome will

     ever greet mine tinnitus
     pained ears, I can plainly
imagine acrimonious retort
upon me behest
his far more'n lifetime
bobbing (like a sponge)
buoyed atop crest
longing e'en for

     (carping, caviling, hen pecking,
     or shrewish) wife,
     and loving family
forsaken, sans living
antisocial upon briny deep divest
many opportunities to
experience wedded, webbed
and whirled bliss,

and hence for everest
as bachelor, especially
     at present junction
     of twilight years,
     my crude manners
makes foreign (for
an) ill suited guest
boot e'en if yours truly

     became inured to life on land,
(as a "FAKE" father figure
feathering his nest
my coarse behavior, as basic
electric koolaid acid test
     would force even

the most tolerant proprietor,
perhaps a bank
manager at Univest
would utter VAMOOSE,
     e'en if eye covered up
my heavily pierced,
and tattooed breast.
destination unknown
for this Earthling
stardate: February 26th, 2022

At sea since time immemorial
I relish being alone
upon oceanic expanse
yours truly doth bemoan
me gal Sal (one among
numerous female confidantes),
no matter, she easily
mistaken as a crone
magical powers keep
her manning far aloft drone
as surveillance hovers above me
(to intercept encrypted

communication maintained
courtesy bluetooth earphone)
the two of us sol survivors
I feel like a foreigner since
global thermonuclear war
bombed webbed wide world
into pulverized power
vaguely similar landscape
to age of Fred Flintstone
and Barney Rubble
recurring memories redolent
of yesteryear, whereby I groan
though simple living

such as me and the missus
did Potschke coaxing homegrown
organic fruits and vegetables,
though, I attest we did
get violently angry with each other
and unwittingly cross interzone
where brickbats exchanged,
especially after she discovered
an illicit extramarital affair
between myself and Joan
since kindergarten her I known.

Weather beaten cap'n,
and watertight bewitched craft
time tested since maiden voyage
(circumnavigating the globe
back in the day of my youth),
I ranked tough as a pitbull,
when severely pitted
against raw elements
of swiftly tailored,
harried stylish nature
against leathery faced

reptilian skin, hard drinking
(actually as corked
poetic convenience - vermouth
arbitrary bottle of choice
if for no other reason,
than to rhyme
with the above line),
and tobacco spitting, while
colorfully swearing as an uncouth
Furies (of Agamemnon)
fighting (tooth

and nail) Pirate,
where rickets, scurvy,
and thrice unconscious,
currently ample proof
could not forsooth
bring me to Davy Jones's locker,
cuz I never wanna
get relegated to an underwater
whale schooled booth,
this raconteur can nonchalantly,
glibly, and blithely attest,

with braggadocio, despite
no warm welcome will
ever greet mine tinnitus
pained ears, I can plainly
imagine acrimonious retort
upon me behest
his far more'n lifetime
bobbing (like a sponge)
square pants float
buoyed atop crest longing e'en for
(carping, caviling, hen pecking,
or shrewish) wife.
Lloyd Elipokea Mar 2020
We all just get one shot at this thing called life.
When we are treated unfairly, let us continue striding forth with greater resolve and a deeper sense of purpose.
When our wings are clipped, let us take time out to tend to our wounds until they are healed.
And once we feel right as rain again, let us endeavor to boldly soar high and higher than ever before until we are at one with the eagle who from its ideal vantage point high above the earth surveys the dazzling variety of life below with an enviable glint of supreme self-assuredness in its eyes.
I wonder: were we all to approach the storms and valleys of our lives with that same swagger and braggadocio, would any obstacle really be too daunting to stand in our way?

The End
Across the realm of gray matter
slowly percolating within tissue
composed of neuronal, glial
and endothelial cells, and although
there must be biological rules
that determine the numbers
of cells of each subtype
and the volumes (or masses)
occupied by them,
little is known about such rules,
if they indeed exist

nevertheless, ah haint goot
no trade secret, boot verily
attest adventitious, bounteous, and
capacious divine intervention
(analogous to invisible
Charge of the Light Brigade)
timely saving amazing grace
engorges, engirdles, and engenders mine
body, mind and spirit,
which psychic triage
accruing, germinating,

and manifesting coming
forth, and appearing
at the most opportune
pluperfect tinder kindling
jawboning indeed, and
instagramming optimal instant –
sparing irreparable cerebral damage,
yet inflicting temporary
temporal lobe trauma
not surprising giving
brain big bang, sans

tickly totally tubular raise
zing trumpeting – analogous
to Portuguese man-of-war
sea render tyranny
(Sic semper tyrannis)
over fifty plus shades sways
undulating cerebral cortex
doth lightly secretly
with naturally secreted
unguent liberal mindedly braise,
which explanation might meet

with skepticism, but crazy as such
"FAKE" holy transcendent
heavenly extra corporeal
modus operandi may seem,
an inexplicable force
powerfully Herculean sensation
grips me noggin leavening
mental scratch pad in a daze
of blinding poetic inspiration doth    
like quaffing goblet
of gin n tonic faze

this phenomena plays
a particularly puzzling role
on account difficult to phrase
in light of my being an atheist,
which non deistic, theistic,
nor Vedic precept stays
metaphorically locked, linkedin, and
leveraged in place,
despite non religious confession
augmentation, attribution,
and association showers inspiration,

where eyes fixedly glaze
as literary creativity attaining
high psychological grades
dramatically engages fantastically
with cosmic force appearing
as nebulous haze
seems antithetical to premise
couched, fixated, and interleaved
anchor rightly, viz
secular humanism inlays
votary visa versa entrees

shutterfly, snapchat twitter
comport comfortably situated
in  the catbird seat
as upon royal chaise
lounge steeped within
monastic hermetically ascetic ways
akin to daffodils got to puff the
magic dragon GoDaddy seed achieve
visibly absent pride and
prejudice where aggrieve
ving unseen, as careening

human bits believe
where forebears of Adam, and
the ants sandy dunes cleave
species pollination, yet devoid of
neither sense nor
sensibility that deceive
themselves philanthropic buttressed
by religious ethos, dogmas
credo, et cetera since Eve
to and fro, hither and yon
across the globe heave

infusing self importance
viz zit heady species
**** sapiens sans belief bold
lee granting superiority
to hundreds of generations
lapsed goo gilled descendants
of contemporary Primates cold,
and calculating dictatorial demagogues
(no matter dishabille disheveled) doled
out self importance
gussied up as kingpins,

whose braggadocio extolled
blood lust, depravity and egregious
on flip side of Manichaeism origami fold
touting faux grandeur measly
humans inherent self supremacy,
which mettle valuably wrought
more precious than gold
whereby might versus right
fostered iron gripped hold
trumping supreme cosmic
deity (if such exists,

per those, who ascribe existence
to divine creator),
where mankind didst
get special mold
where fictitious codified battlements
evinced luminary salient traits
if millennial forbears hypothetically polled
vis a vis virtue vindicates
vice viz lyrical tomes
such legendary mythological narratives as:
Aeneid, Don Juan,

Paradise Lost, The Divine Comedy,
Mahabharata, Beowulf,
Metamorphoses, The Odyssey,
Epic of Gilgamesh,
and The Iliad
displayed thunderous outrages
rectified violently rocked and rolled
where assignment throughout galaxy -
studded with malevolent
mailer daemons all told
informed terrestrial behavior,

decrees and formalities amidst wold
wide webbed skein tenuous
as gossamer wings
shutterfly at the speed of sound
albeit ergot size
solemn spores bumping,
commingling and jostling beings
whose demotic, erratic,
and frenetic vernacular
bumped uglies against
sacred talismanic wild things

while secular notions cursed
as intractably intolerable swings
per paradigms that disallowed rubric,
where autocratic stings
lashed out at pagan rites, which
when viewed from
surface where Earthlings
dwelt appeared as unpredictable
skittering dots with nary flings
perceived, but simply

near microscopic simians
crowning themselves as Kings
of Leon admonishing those
madding crowd source rings
of bright waters -
offering entertainment
to the invisible forces
within galactic realm
as mere antics of goslings.
Joseph Robinette Biden
now commander in chief yay
manning ship of state
tossing anchors aweigh
heavily pierced tattooed
donning sheepish pirate(s)
at heady roiling waterway
fending off trolling rapscallion
much more thrilling

than watching cabaret
January twenty first two thousand
twenty one marks his first full day
wherein Oval Office finally
flushed, ousted, and zapped,
whose paternal ancestry
begat genealogical linkedin émigré
name unknown, nevertheless

one Johann Trump born within
Bobenheim am Berg, a village
in Palatinate, Germany circa 1789
moved to nearby village of Kallstadt
where his grandson, Friedrich Trump,
the grandfather of Donald Trump,
born in 1869 gamboled
upon grassy fairway
whereby grandson notorious

to grandstand and gainsay,
but especially renowned
windblown coiffure
kept intact courtesy "fake" hairspray
said product he did fulminate
against and inveigh,
cuz he envied (as does yours truly)
the trademark thatch sported by J.F.K.

At long last, a stalwart adept candidate
unwittingly saddled
with onerous figurative freight
COVID-19, homelessness, joblessness
sober statistics impossible mission to inflate,
whose physique slender and lightweight
boot pulleys and levers of power

he quite savvily can operate
personable and suave demeanor doth resonate
allowing, enabling, and providing
law and order to materialize,
and accomplishments downplayed
(unlike previous commander in chief)
whose braggadocio would never underrate.

Concern still prevails
regarding that woman user
egging fascistic paramilitary
white supremacist ilk
twittering as a digital schmoozer
hell bent on sowing anarchy,

cuz other Democratic contestant
did not defeat
soured at prospect their man beat
(him - who shall not be named again
ranks as a sore loser)
nevertheless, an oafish shill bruiser.

If prognostications allowed me,
at bedtime, when a supine American,
one garden variety and generic
sleepy Joe among madding crowd
will experience glee

at prospective buoyancy, decency,
fraternity, harmony, jollity, levity,
nobility, prosperity, serenity, tranquility...
wishing no ill will toward
former forty sixth president.
Though anyone who saw
and/or watched local news would be more wise
the brief flurry of crystalline precipitation
came as a complete surprise,
cuz yours truly prefers
getting strangled courtesy neckties
versus being given spoiler alert
subsequently forced to give reciprocal highfives.

I generally skirt tracking the weather,
nevertheless the missus would pantomime,
née blurts out with glee
meteorological conditions occurring here
out the skies above second Street
within Schwenksville, Pennsylvania.

No rhyme nor reason prevails
necessitating yours truly to hear and/or see
what mother nature doth hold in store
concerning (Delaware, Chester,
and Montgomery) tri county locale
sometimes loosely referred to
as comprising Delaware Valley

a geographical area coterminous with
metropolitan statistical area (MSA)
and broader combined statistical area (CSA),
and composed of counties located in
Southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey,
Delaware, and the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

As a lifetime resident - 19473 zip code
regarding aforementioned place name,
I can ofttimes intimate
how the forecast will bode
especially if adequate hours spent outdoors,

more so when yours truly
lived at 3224 Level Road
which less likely as ole man winter
huffs and puffs with braggadocio
rarely ripping, riffing, and riding
piggyback with nor'easter.

Interestingly enough global warming
affected dramatic climate change
during course of mine lifetime,
where Currier and Ives rural
linkedin with good n plenti grange,
where agrarian lifestyle might seem strange
to urban outfitters constituting population.

Truth be told, I fondly remember those days of yore
when countless unbroken acres of greenery
whereat in Arcola a cider mill vestige
of American/British Revolutionary War
perhaps e'en centuries before frequented by troubadour
named Shakespeare, quite sad

to narrate hundreds of years postwar
(meaning that brouhaha incorporating
Declaration of Independence)
long since derelict and sold
possibly by family with surname Knorr,
(methinks his first name Ignoramus nickname Ig)
who strongly exhibited demeanor of Eeyore.
Fictional account related
courtesy one pink flamingo.

Aves lusting for verboten tweet
reed lubricious sin after giving
Twiggy another peck on the cheek.

Whenever this birdman
alone with his thoughts
(as they metaphorically
worm their way to my nest
of quintessentially straggly,
and uncombed matted hair),
I doth twitter tomb
eye self unbeknownst that
a flock of seagulls fly
like an eagle twittering

morning mister magpie
while dipping and diving
on peregrine wings fluttering
at the speed of sound owls
watching without giving hoot
unless aware someone maliciously
poisoning pigeons in the park,
(one doubting thomas - leering)
perhaps a lunatic ranting and raven
whooping crane like, whooshing

to rise like a Phoenix, yet grudgingly
accepting fate as a stool pigeon,
even settling with destiny
as the cutty wren, a lark
ascending, pontification asper
observations of a crow keeping beak
clamped shut surreptitiously scrutinizing
the ostrich (with her/ his head
buried in the sand), or noticing
how the sparrow looks up

at the machine, which appears
to by an audio device issuing
the thieving magpie overture
alight with such braggadocio
and effecting a birds eye view
of determining contrasted
with the ugly duckling left friendless
and instantly bringing to mind
that somber tune when doves cry
setting the impossible to shake off

feeling emotionally caged,
though with utmost exertion muster
humming when the red red robin
comes bob bob bobbin along eager
to join a whir thee claws such
as when the swallows come back
from Capistrano (with an un spa
beak able aromatic deliciously
decadent Reuben manwich –
an American hot sandwich
composed of corned beef, Swiss cheese,

sauerkraut, and Russian dressing,
grilled between slices of rye bread)
interestingly enough the vicinity
wheresoever eagles gather
all the while wondering
if woody woodpecker, now a free bird
(after aphid david imbroglio) –
an accusation where plaintiff
accused of feathering the nest -
did tern out favorable, or whether

the filed aphid dove hid –
juiced when the believed
by this American avocet and done,
an unexpected eggs add jure
rated claim fed the media,
and seedy shenanigans
Toucan entire troops of Archaeopteryx
to placate all parties concern,
that **** er end
finally delivered peace plover.
Nat Lipstadt Jun 18
man of monikers, got plenty, count all your fingers,
all your toes, thrown in some eyes and some noses
got me so many, had to make a list, then true,
forget where the heck I put it! In many countries,
they modify me, with a local version of my very
biblical first name!

Some of you spot me very quickly
masquerading as a child or a woman, a writer of only love poetry, nature lover, an island dweller, one who composes standing on one left foot, it’s part of the freedom I crave and cherish,
when I awake each night to
explore the boundaries of my peculiar wordsmithy,
that makes me still crazy after all these years,
(seven decades plus, &  a few tears),
but each moment calls m to me differently,
and who you want to be
when
the powerful urges commences, is just as important as who you are, my imagination and my reality combine
to let me run free with the invention of liberty of fresh perspective.

Jeez!
everybody says your write with the
braggadocio of a native new yorker, so I
figure that ain’t much of mystery, but spend
much months of time by the water, which
modify me, my poems, when under the spell of
them influencers: Sun, Sand, Greenery, an ever-changing
Animal Menagerie, wear a visor of water vistas,
that lap the eyes with saltwater tears.
But to know essential me, suggest this read:

— The End —