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Who would not laugh, if Lawrence, hired to grace
His costly canvas with each flattered face,
Abused his art, till Nature, with a blush,
Saw cits grow Centaurs underneath his brush?
Or, should some limner join, for show or sale,
A Maid of Honour to a Mermaid’s tail?
Or low Dubost—as once the world has seen—
Degrade God’s creatures in his graphic spleen?
Not all that forced politeness, which defends
Fools in their faults, could gag his grinning friends.
Believe me, Moschus, like that picture seems
The book which, sillier than a sick man’s dreams,
Displays a crowd of figures incomplete,
Poetic Nightmares, without head or feet.

  Poets and painters, as all artists know,
May shoot a little with a lengthened bow;
We claim this mutual mercy for our task,
And grant in turn the pardon which we ask;
But make not monsters spring from gentle dams—
Birds breed not vipers, tigers nurse not lambs.

  A laboured, long Exordium, sometimes tends
(Like patriot speeches) but to paltry ends;
And nonsense in a lofty note goes down,
As Pertness passes with a legal gown:
Thus many a Bard describes in pompous strain
The clear brook babbling through the goodly plain:
The groves of Granta, and her Gothic halls,
King’s Coll-Cam’s stream-stained windows, and old walls:
Or, in adventurous numbers, neatly aims
To paint a rainbow, or the river Thames.

  You sketch a tree, and so perhaps may shine—
But daub a shipwreck like an alehouse sign;
You plan a vase—it dwindles to a ***;
Then glide down Grub-street—fasting and forgot:
Laughed into Lethe by some quaint Review,
Whose wit is never troublesome till—true.

In fine, to whatsoever you aspire,
Let it at least be simple and entire.

  The greater portion of the rhyming tribe
(Give ear, my friend, for thou hast been a scribe)
Are led astray by some peculiar lure.
I labour to be brief—become obscure;
One falls while following Elegance too fast;
Another soars, inflated with Bombast;
Too low a third crawls on, afraid to fly,
He spins his subject to Satiety;
Absurdly varying, he at last engraves
Fish in the woods, and boars beneath the waves!

  Unless your care’s exact, your judgment nice,
The flight from Folly leads but into Vice;
None are complete, all wanting in some part,
Like certain tailors, limited in art.
For galligaskins Slowshears is your man
But coats must claim another artisan.
Now this to me, I own, seems much the same
As Vulcan’s feet to bear Apollo’s frame;
Or, with a fair complexion, to expose
Black eyes, black ringlets, but—a bottle nose!

  Dear Authors! suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject, and its length;
Nor lift your load, before you’re quite aware
What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.
But lucid Order, and Wit’s siren voice,
Await the Poet, skilful in his choice;
With native Eloquence he soars along,
Grace in his thoughts, and Music in his song.

  Let Judgment teach him wisely to combine
With future parts the now omitted line:
This shall the Author choose, or that reject,
Precise in style, and cautious to select;
Nor slight applause will candid pens afford
To him who furnishes a wanting word.
Then fear not, if ’tis needful, to produce
Some term unknown, or obsolete in use,
(As Pitt has furnished us a word or two,
Which Lexicographers declined to do;)
So you indeed, with care,—(but be content
To take this license rarely)—may invent.
New words find credit in these latter days,
If neatly grafted on a Gallic phrase;
What Chaucer, Spenser did, we scarce refuse
To Dryden’s or to Pope’s maturer Muse.
If you can add a little, say why not,
As well as William Pitt, and Walter Scott?
Since they, by force of rhyme and force of lungs,
Enriched our Island’s ill-united tongues;
’Tis then—and shall be—lawful to present
Reform in writing, as in Parliament.

  As forests shed their foliage by degrees,
So fade expressions which in season please;
And we and ours, alas! are due to Fate,
And works and words but dwindle to a date.
Though as a Monarch nods, and Commerce calls,
Impetuous rivers stagnate in canals;
Though swamps subdued, and marshes drained, sustain
The heavy ploughshare and the yellow grain,
And rising ports along the busy shore
Protect the vessel from old Ocean’s roar,
All, all, must perish; but, surviving last,
The love of Letters half preserves the past.
True, some decay, yet not a few revive;
Though those shall sink, which now appear to thrive,
As Custom arbitrates, whose shifting sway
Our life and language must alike obey.

  The immortal wars which Gods and Angels wage,
Are they not shown in Milton’s sacred page?
His strain will teach what numbers best belong
To themes celestial told in Epic song.

  The slow, sad stanza will correctly paint
The Lover’s anguish, or the Friend’s complaint.
But which deserves the Laurel—Rhyme or Blank?
Which holds on Helicon the higher rank?
Let squabbling critics by themselves dispute
This point, as puzzling as a Chancery suit.

  Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen.
You doubt—see Dryden, Pope, St. Patrick’s Dean.
Blank verse is now, with one consent, allied
To Tragedy, and rarely quits her side.
Though mad Almanzor rhymed in Dryden’s days,
No sing-song Hero rants in modern plays;
Whilst modest Comedy her verse foregoes
For jest and ‘pun’ in very middling prose.
Not that our Bens or Beaumonts show the worse,
Or lose one point, because they wrote in verse.
But so Thalia pleases to appear,
Poor ******! ****** some twenty times a year!

Whate’er the scene, let this advice have weight:—
Adapt your language to your Hero’s state.
At times Melpomene forgets to groan,
And brisk Thalia takes a serious tone;
Nor unregarded will the act pass by
Where angry Townly “lifts his voice on high.”
Again, our Shakespeare limits verse to Kings,
When common prose will serve for common things;
And lively Hal resigns heroic ire,—
To “hollaing Hotspur” and his sceptred sire.

  ’Tis not enough, ye Bards, with all your art,
To polish poems; they must touch the heart:
Where’er the scene be laid, whate’er the song,
Still let it bear the hearer’s soul along;
Command your audience or to smile or weep,
Whiche’er may please you—anything but sleep.
The Poet claims our tears; but, by his leave,
Before I shed them, let me see ‘him’ grieve.

  If banished Romeo feigned nor sigh nor tear,
Lulled by his languor, I could sleep or sneer.
Sad words, no doubt, become a serious face,
And men look angry in the proper place.
At double meanings folks seem wondrous sly,
And Sentiment prescribes a pensive eye;
For Nature formed at first the inward man,
And actors copy Nature—when they can.
She bids the beating heart with rapture bound,
Raised to the Stars, or levelled with the ground;
And for Expression’s aid, ’tis said, or sung,
She gave our mind’s interpreter—the tongue,
Who, worn with use, of late would fain dispense
(At least in theatres) with common sense;
O’erwhelm with sound the Boxes, Gallery, Pit,
And raise a laugh with anything—but Wit.

  To skilful writers it will much import,
Whence spring their scenes, from common life or Court;
Whether they seek applause by smile or tear,
To draw a Lying Valet, or a Lear,
A sage, or rakish youngster wild from school,
A wandering Peregrine, or plain John Bull;
All persons please when Nature’s voice prevails,
Scottish or Irish, born in Wilts or Wales.

  Or follow common fame, or forge a plot;
Who cares if mimic heroes lived or not!
One precept serves to regulate the scene:
Make it appear as if it might have been.

  If some Drawcansir you aspire to draw,
Present him raving, and above all law:
If female furies in your scheme are planned,
Macbeth’s fierce dame is ready to your hand;
For tears and treachery, for good and evil,
Constance, King Richard, Hamlet, and the Devil!
But if a new design you dare essay,
And freely wander from the beaten way,
True to your characters, till all be past,
Preserve consistency from first to last.

  Tis hard to venture where our betters fail,
Or lend fresh interest to a twice-told tale;
And yet, perchance,’tis wiser to prefer
A hackneyed plot, than choose a new, and err;
Yet copy not too closely, but record,
More justly, thought for thought than word for word;
Nor trace your Prototype through narrow ways,
But only follow where he merits praise.

  For you, young Bard! whom luckless fate may lead
To tremble on the nod of all who read,
Ere your first score of cantos Time unrolls,
Beware—for God’s sake, don’t begin like Bowles!
“Awake a louder and a loftier strain,”—
And pray, what follows from his boiling brain?—
He sinks to Southey’s level in a trice,
Whose Epic Mountains never fail in mice!
Not so of yore awoke your mighty Sire
The tempered warblings of his master-lyre;
Soft as the gentler breathing of the lute,
“Of Man’s first disobedience and the fruit”
He speaks, but, as his subject swells along,
Earth, Heaven, and Hades echo with the song.”
Still to the “midst of things” he hastens on,
As if we witnessed all already done;
Leaves on his path whatever seems too mean
To raise the subject, or adorn the scene;
Gives, as each page improves upon the sight,
Not smoke from brightness, but from darkness—light;
And truth and fiction with such art compounds,
We know not where to fix their several bounds.

  If you would please the Public, deign to hear
What soothes the many-headed monster’s ear:
If your heart triumph when the hands of all
Applaud in thunder at the curtain’s fall,
Deserve those plaudits—study Nature’s page,
And sketch the striking traits of every age;
While varying Man and varying years unfold
Life’s little tale, so oft, so vainly told;
Observe his simple childhood’s dawning days,
His pranks, his prate, his playmates, and his plays:
Till time at length the mannish tyro weans,
And prurient vice outstrips his tardy teens!

  Behold him Freshman! forced no more to groan
O’er Virgil’s devilish verses and his own;
Prayers are too tedious, Lectures too abstruse,
He flies from Tavell’s frown to “Fordham’s Mews;”
(Unlucky Tavell! doomed to daily cares
By pugilistic pupils, and by bears,)
Fines, Tutors, tasks, Conventions threat in vain,
Before hounds, hunters, and Newmarket Plain.
Rough with his elders, with his equals rash,
Civil to sharpers, prodigal of cash;
Constant to nought—save hazard and a *****,
Yet cursing both—for both have made him sore:
Unread (unless since books beguile disease,
The P——x becomes his passage to Degrees);
Fooled, pillaged, dunned, he wastes his terms away,
And unexpelled, perhaps, retires M.A.;
Master of Arts! as hells and clubs proclaim,
Where scarce a blackleg bears a brighter name!

  Launched into life, extinct his early fire,
He apes the selfish prudence of his Sire;
Marries for money, chooses friends for rank,
Buys land, and shrewdly trusts not to the Bank;
Sits in the Senate; gets a son and heir;
Sends him to Harrow—for himself was there.
Mute, though he votes, unless when called to cheer,
His son’s so sharp—he’ll see the dog a Peer!

  Manhood declines—Age palsies every limb;
He quits the scene—or else the scene quits him;
Scrapes wealth, o’er each departing penny grieves,
And Avarice seizes all Ambition leaves;
Counts cent per cent, and smiles, or vainly frets,
O’er hoards diminished by young Hopeful’s debts;
Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy,
Complete in all life’s lessons—but to die;
Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please,
Commending every time, save times like these;
Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot,
Expires unwept—is buried—Let him rot!

  But from the Drama let me not digress,
Nor spare my precepts, though they please you less.
Though Woman weep, and hardest hearts are stirred,
When what is done is rather seen than heard,
Yet many deeds preserved in History’s page
Are better told than acted on the stage;
The ear sustains what shocks the timid eye,
And Horror thus subsides to Sympathy,
True Briton all beside, I here am French—
Bloodshed ’tis surely better to retrench:
The gladiatorial gore we teach to flow
In tragic scenes disgusts though but in show;
We hate the carnage while we see the trick,
And find small sympathy in being sick.
Not on the stage the regicide Macbeth
Appals an audience with a Monarch’s death;
To gaze when sable Hubert threats to sear
Young Arthur’s eyes, can ours or Nature bear?
A haltered heroine Johnson sought to slay—
We saved Irene, but half ****** the play,
And (Heaven be praised!) our tolerating times
Stint Metamorphoses to Pantomimes;
And Lewis’ self, with all his sprites, would quake
To change Earl Osmond’s ***** to a snake!
Because, in scenes exciting joy or grief,
We loathe the action which exceeds belief:
And yet, God knows! what may not authors do,
Whose Postscripts prate of dyeing “heroines blue”?

  Above all things, Dan Poet, if you can,
Eke out your acts, I pray, with mortal man,
Nor call a ghost, unless some cursed scrape
Must open ten trap-doors for your escape.
Of all the monstrous things I’d fain forbid,
I loathe an Opera worse than Dennis did;
Where good and evil persons, right or wrong,
Rage, love, and aught but moralise—in song.
Hail, last memorial of our foreign friends,
Which Gaul allows, and still Hesperia lends!
Napoleon’s edicts no embargo lay
On ******—spies—singers—wisely shipped away.
Our giant Capital, whose squares are spread
Where rustics earned, and now may beg, their bread,
In all iniquity is grown so nice,
It scorns amusements which are not of price.
Hence the pert shopkeeper, whose throbbing ear
Aches with orchestras which he pays to hear,
Whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to snore,
His anguish doubling by his own “encore;”
Squeezed in “Fop’s Alley,” jostled by the beaux,
Teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes;
Scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of ease,
Till the dropped curtain gives a glad release:
Why this, and more, he suffers—can ye guess?—
Because it costs him dear, and makes him dress!

  So prosper eunuchs from Etruscan schools;
Give us but fiddlers, and they’re sure of fools!
Ere scenes were played by many a reverend clerk,
(What harm, if David danced before the ark?)
In Christmas revels, simple country folks
Were pleased with morrice-mumm’ry and coarse jokes.
Improving years, with things no longer known,
Produced blithe Punch and merry Madame Joan,
Who still frisk on with feats so lewdly low,
’Tis strange Benvolio suffers such a show;
Suppressing peer! to whom each vice gives place,
Oaths, boxing, begging—all, save rout and race.

  Farce followed Comedy, and reached her prime,
In ever-laughing Foote’s fantastic time:
Mad wag! who pardoned none, nor spared the best,
And turned some very serious things to jest.
Nor Church nor State escaped his public sneers,
Arms nor the Gown—Priests—Lawyers—Volunteers:
“Alas, poor Yorick!” now for ever mute!
Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote.

  We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes
Ape the swoln dialogue of Kings and Queens,
When “Crononhotonthologos must die,”
And Arthur struts in mimic majesty.

  Moschus! with whom once more I hope to sit,
And smile at folly, if we can’t at wit;
Yes, Friend! for thee I’ll quit my cynic cell,
And bear Swift’s motto, “Vive la bagatelle!”
Which charmed our days in each ægean clime,
As oft at home, with revelry and rhyme.
Then may Euphrosyne, who sped the past,
Soothe thy Life’s scenes, nor leave thee in the last;
But find in thine—like pagan Plato’s bed,
Some merry Manuscript of Mimes, when dead.

  Now to the Drama let us bend our eyes,
Where fettered by whig Walpole low she lies;
Corruption foiled her, for she feared her glance;
Decorum left her for an Opera dance!
Yet Chesterfield, whose polished pen inveighs
‘Gainst laughter, fought for freedom to our Plays;
Unchecked by Megrims of patrician brains,
And damning Dulness of Lord Chamberlains.
Repeal that act! again let Humour roam
Wild o’er the stage—we’ve time for tears at home;
Let Archer plant the horns on Sullen’s brows,
And Estifania gull her “Copper” spouse;
The moral’s scant—but that may be excused,
Men go not to be lectured, but amused.
He whom our plays dispose to Good or Ill
Must wear a head in want of Willis’ skill;
Aye, but Macheath’s examp
There’s always been a counter-culture.
And by counter-culture
I do not mean the CPAs or CEOs,
Or those money **’s at Goldman-Sachs,
Nor do I conjure up a ****** of Brooklynese,
Some De Niro or Pacino, or
Bobby-come-lately Cannavale--
This decade’s guinea strunz--
Standing on the back of the truck
Checking his hand full of dollar--
As in Almighty Dollar--bills.
Another hour’s pay & time to
“Count duh money.”
Nor do I mean Harvey Korman
In his greatest film role:
“Count De Monet,”
Part 1 of Mel Brooks’
History of the World:
Harvey as French fop, 1789,
And we may as well throw a
Sop to Cerberus with nary a
Bean Counter around, to be found.
And if you are with me thus far,
You may as well stick it out to the end.

What one word defines the counter-culture?
For me: RESISTANCE,
Any kneecap reflexive swim against the tide.
For Count DeMonet:  La Résistance.
When hair is short,
They grow theirs long,
Or shave their heads,
Pierce their tongues & *******,
Inka-dinka-dooing their epidermis,
Mere skin-deep commitment to Liberté,
Always the least tangible of
French tripartite banner slogans.
The French:
As always, putting up a good show,
Masters of illusion & flexibility
When it comes to ethnic integrity,
Captain Louie Renault, Vichy stooge,
Exemplar extraordinaire,
Double shocked to find gambling
Going on at Rick’s Café,
His morality to the wind,
Tacking strategically,
Playing it safe, as always, a
Fickle-finger to the weather.
The French: girlie men, bent over
Presenting bidet-puckered rectums,
For *** and Viet Cong humiliation,
Once again, declaring victory,
While slipping out the back door,
Wearing nothing but their socks.
But I digress.

The Counter-Culture,
A mile wide and a centimeter deep,
Putting up a good front,
A Potemkin still life,
In it for appearance sake,
Like Billy Crystal doing Fernando Lamas:
“It's better to look good
Than to feel good.”
Looking marvelous, of course,
All the girls want to be
The Dragon Tattoo girl,
Haunted & smart,
Solitary & suspicious,
Cybercrime wealthy.
Cashing in, raking in affluence;
The guys all with Bobbitt night sweats,
***** shriveled, shrunken ball-sacks,
Count De Monet
Counting duh money.
Anonymous May 2014
"And now please welcome today's anti-terrorism speaker, Anonymous!"

[anonymous applause, dwindling out]

"Thanks, everyone. The reason I prefer anonymity should be self-evident, but just to make it clear, I wish to avoid the recrimination of the hostile element."

"Before I got here I was just reading, and believe me I'm still not believing, but it would seem, on the whole, that planetary aggression is on the slow."

A hand is raised
A hand is ignored
The speaker moistens his lips
Prepared to emit a bit more.

"I have stats and stories
Tortuous anecdotes about little girls and boys
Food and sanitation is a crime itself
And I'm prepared to say we live in our own hell."

Arms upheld wither down
As new hands reach for attention
But the speaker ignores them all
Intent on his own presentation.

"The reason for hate
Is more or less clear
We fiercely believe one thing
As they devoutly believe another.

But do not fear!
We are right and they are wrong
They saddle their own children with a death song
No cartoons of basic morality
Just legs with bombs
Made to go off remotely."

An angry rustle
Amidst lowered hands
Quieting now
Like they're getting the hang of it.

"Humans are robots
Programmable, malleable and sometimes trustworthy
Highly complicated machinery!
Indoctrination is the virus
That seeks to destroy the outside."

Again the raised hands
And eyebrows too
All these fluttering robots
Fluttering in a pseudo-free zoo.

Ignoring the obvious
The speaker plods onwards
But modulates his voice
Against their trained reactions.

"We need to accept and enfold
An ideology only thousands of years old
To mutate and twist
Into what our children might wish."

Someone yells "Disney!"
Another mutters "Black whiteys"
But there are a few
Who remain to hear it through.

"Despite what you think
Despite who you are
Against all you've been taught
We've come quite far.

You may not know your son
You may not know your daughter
But leave them alone
And tomorrow may happen.

Put the guns aside
Drink from your hidden bottles without shame
You are who you are
And you should let them be them."

This is not what anyone wanted
Anyone over the age of ten
This is not what anyone wanted
With children and the urge to brainwash them.

The room trickles out
Leaving the most devout
Devoted to the future
Any future left standing.

But amidst this group
Are hard-liner elements
And one has a voice
Cutting through it all
To ask, "What about bomber babies?"

And riding right on top
Is a fat slobbery Republican fop
Demanding in his self-entitled way
"What the **** about America?"

The speaker shrugs
As if to indicate
Which question
Is more stupid.

"We seek to leave the planet
And develop tech to make it happen
You go your way
And we go ours."

The room is smaller now
They indulge in eye contact
Personal communications
Words, hands, heads and eyebrows.

The speaker sighs
As if on the cusp of absolute honesty
Then spills his true guts
To these few radicals and emissaries:

"Our worst enemy is ourselves
Through millennia fashioning our own hells
Subjugation of non-prominent DNA
Believing destruction will pave the way.

But on a not-much larger scale
We're just cheap entertainment
For every other race
That crawled up this hill."

The crowd is slightly subdued
Probably more from shame
Than anything
Because shame is in the DNA
And experienced by everyone.

But we can always rely
On some fat Republican to decry
"But not me!
And for sure not my children!"

And now even more file out
Hearts emptied and minds afloat
Now it's just the sweating speaker
And a few odd haters.

"We're a microbial phenomenon
Miraculously still alive
And still inept
At staying alive."

He waves a casual hand like a maestro
And behind him the stage glows
A 30x30 screen descends
Illuminating bugs as they crawl.

"We're slightly smarter
But no more hardier
Than Hymenoptera
Except we can leave this planet."

Red-faced and obviously insulted
The old fat plushy storms out
Leaving now just a few
To adopt this future-flung view.

"We need to terraform and colonize
Sure, and design space suits
Pleasing to the eye
But ultimately,
We need to get the hell gone."

One clap, one frown
The speaker shrugs
As if wondering
Why aren't we all gone?

And so he is left
With the clean-up crew
And one fruitcake
Who asks
"Will God come with us?"
Timothy Brown May 2013
Love*:
laying bricks in a line
or a least a lie with N
monotony. Standing in line, at the end,
until the begin

*NEXT!


...ing.
Pretending, that was doing something.
Like a verb, perturbing, unsettling.
Cold air is causing nerve ending
stand

NEXT!

...up. Back of the neck rub
Trapped like a spider in a covered tub.
Seems wide till the world opens wide and there's a snub
from the passing yacht club as it crashes into the hub.
Now aren't you glad you got grub instead of a ticket

NEXT!

...stub? Chop and bop.
Hop on the bed, called Dr. Suess' pop.
Lets swap places. Straighten the tie, I am a flop
fop. Harvesting their crop of heads. Onomatopoeia plop

*NEXT
Love is placing your head on a chopping block and knowing the executioner won't swing.
© April 30th, 2013 by Timothy Brown. All rights reserved
1380

How much the present moment means
To those who’ve nothing more—
The Fop—the Carp—the Atheist—
Stake an entire store
Upon a Moment’s shallow Rim
While their commuted Feet
The Torrents of Eternity
Do all but inundate—
Jared A Washburn Jun 2015
Allen Ginsberg, a raving madman, a man beyond the borders of normal
      once said, “Poets are ******, but see with the eyes of angels.”
His ranting howls, mere paradoxical clamorings (LOUDER).
His bootless, penniless, homeless cries, slight nonsensical musings.
His power subdued, his passion put-out, his well of enumerations run
      dry…

Can you hear him?

(LOUDER!!!)

Are you even listening?

What do holy angel-headed hipsters like he see?

A myriad of star-crossed artists, poets, gurus, and monks?
A tired and beat batch of street corner hustlers, homeless and hungry?
A drunk in the back-room bar?
A stumbling, shadowy silhouette in the by-street (an enigma...)?
An old man, philosophizing to everyone and no one but himself?
A juke box stuck on repeat?
A young couple, making love with their feet under the table?
A trio of jazz musicians out back for a smoke?
A bar maid making minimum wage, or nothing?
A priest who's losing his conviction?
A down-n-out loner, dreamy, dazed, dashed,
      staring at the bottom of his empty beer glass
      (who will buy the next round)?
A nosey cop?
A rosey fop?
A belligerent racist?
A beat runaway?
A child begging? (there are so many...)
A fed-up fanatic? (too loud, too loud…)
A would-be protester-rioter-anarchist, giving up and going home?
A giggling girl, flirting, with her skirt hiked high?
A show-off with an inferiority complex?
A shy recluse, too afraid to walk through the door?
A power-hungry politician, his propaganda blasting through the static of
      a detuned radio advertisement, paid for by (who are these people?)?
A struggle, never-ending, ever-renewed, always there, always alive,
      but only seen through crazy, mad, angelic eyes.
A tribute to Mr. Ginsberg, one of my favorite madmen.
Molly Sep 2014
There are trap doors everywhere,
under the rugs
covered by the mossy earth,
there was one in your bathroom, did you know?
One day I used your expensive shampoo,
the one that smells like lavender, you fop,
rinsed off, stepped out, and
fell,
thought, oh, this again.

There is a trap door at the coffee shop
in the alleyway between the buildings
where there are murals and bad graffiti,
where the university students come
to smoke and talk about Marxism,
but they still haven't noticed it. It's covered
in dead leaves and beer bottles and cigarette butts and
yesterday you stood right on top of it,
I saw you, and you talked about the nuclear potential of Boron
and you'd sweated through your checkered shirt
but the door let you stand, the door
didn't want you yesterday, because...

Because last week I let it take me instead.
Recognized it right off; I've fallen through so many
they call to me now, and I stubbed out my cigarette
stood on the door and I
jumped up and down, rattled its hinges until
it yawned wide open and I felt the cold,
and the winter was howling for blood down below and I
set my hands free to grasp frantically at time,
let my hair whip my face, falling body resigned to
the dark dankness of another misstep
I took willingly.
Ksjpari Aug 2017
Without values life may whop
And you cannot even yawp
As the destiny may strop
A valueless person nonstop.
If your values from life lop
It is zilch and make you fop –
Fop – a man with concern atop
For dress than character prop.
Without values we may drop;
Cannot stand or walk; sit or hop.
So respect values that clearly mop
All bad, illicit or forbidden crop.
I am developing a new style of writing poetry where ending words of a line rhyme with one another, at least in last sound. I named it Pari Style. Hope readers will like it. Thanks to those invisible hands and fingers which supported and inspired me to continue my efforts in my new, creative, artistic and innovative “Pari” style. Thanks for your inspiring, kind, soft fingers.
R King Mar 2013
Sometimes I get a thinkin’
About all in life that’s stinkin’
And yet at other times
I start spewing out rhymes

Some parts cease to make sense
But they serve as emotional vents
For my feelings on the day
That have been held at bay

Yet to think I could compress
All of my stress
Into a few simple lines
People must be out of their minds

Yet that ain’t what this is about
This isn’t a way to shout
For help or attention
Its just here to mention

Anything in my head
From baked beans to bread
Or a man without a clue
To why he’s coughing up glue

It could be about
An animal’s snout
Or maybe sometimes I think
About the color pink

Perhaps there was a thought
About a battle that was fought
Between a chair and a lamp
And a fat kid at camp

Maybe there’s a story
All ****** and gory
Of an accidental chop
Taking the head of a fop

And there’s the Grim Reaper
Taking the soul of a sleeper
Who wakes up to find
He has retained his mind

I could write like this ‘til the end of time
About Bigfoot or cupcakes or the hind of a mime
But eventually I’ll cease
And maybe then I’ll find peace

For anything out of my imagination
Could have laid the foundation
For these things I have penned
And thusly I finish with a simple

The End
Man Aug 5
The joy of simplicity entertained,
Is the death of false airs-
Like that of the faux intellect.
Fancy as a fop,
Gay as a dandy-
Yet, still the poorest sops.
That the point went overhead,
To me, it merely was beneath me
But you could get no lower.
Just wait till you drop! :)
Jeff S Jun 2019
Before it occurred to me to break things—

Before, when purity was paramount to *** and
Words and duty and the drink—

Before, when academics wagged from ivory
Thrones to never mime the masters—

To be content with being only me—

To sit in wood and ruminate upon the thoughts of
White men, drunk and dead—

To raise revision for our mankind
In merely muted measures—

To be right-handed rogue, forever plying “please”—

Why then—then—

I was Halfman in a wholeman’s body,
A fish without its gills—

A flapping Fop of scaling incongruities
With gurgled protestations seldom bubbled up—

A wily Portraiter, blinded since his birth—

An agnostic Abbott soaking up a season’s sins
Outside of habit and the church—

A boisterous Beat, a bouncing drum, and gongs
With two left feet—

A Farmer without a *** or seed or farm
Or Nature much in mind.

But, my curious greenhorns on the other
Side of life, don’t heed that—no! no!

You’re free; the world is completely broken now.
Mark Bell May 2017
Riding along on a nuclear bomb
Rather good I say,smiling aplomb
Tipping the bowler oozing with style
Kiss my sweet lips,please stay awhile.
Jumping prancing on radioactive waste
Rather good I say,wonderful to taste.
Proper fop, in me whistle and flute
Would you dance with me in your birthday suit
Hopped around the globe,Melbourne to Devon
Putting 50 million roulette on unlucky number seven
All this bravado I'm not frightened to die
Can you make love to me and make me cry
Kairosclere Jun 2021
There once lived a king,
Only for the love of garb,
Who drained all the coffers,
To be adorned by something new each hour.
He cared not about the people,
Nor the soldiers at war,
Nor royal events,
Among other kingdoms,
Which failed to set a bar.
What can be said
Of a people,
Whose king himself
Was vain to a fault?
A glutton, nay, a fop,
Spent hours locked
Into a wardrobe much bigger
Than the royal throne room:
A room in which now stood two men
Before the billowing robes
Of a monarch whose face was barely seen,
And lay their case-
The only way to appeal
To a man ruled by cloth-
That they would make the finest
Most exquisite, most elaborate, wear,
Most adored, and adorn him in it,
A fabric that none can see
Except for the bright, and the fit,
Just the ones who were worthy
Of the seat on which they everyday sit.
The emperor, salivates, and says,
“Had I such a suit,
I shall know
The bright from the dim,
The wise from the foolish.
This fabric, nay, the stuff of gods,
Truth teller, must be woven,
For I will be then a king,
Who had it all”-
So as proclaimed, these rogues
Were put to work on the robes.
Given two looms,
And placed in the palace rooms,
They were provided with the finest of silk
The purest of gold thread
The sharpest of needles,
Never seen among their ilk.
They worked day and night,
Pretending to create something of might,
On something shimmeringly light
As thin air.
All the while usurping, pocketing
All the fine thread,
Sharing laughs at the dead of the night
At the foolishness of men.
Men were sent from the court
To check on the status of the weave-
No, the king wouldn’t come himself, no,
He had that much trust,
That a man of his status
Could see the working looms.
So, he sent others,
A test to their intelligence,
And all the people waited with bated breath,
For someone to proclaim
That what they beheld
Was, really, nothing, ahead.
The grand vizier,
Squirmed and stalled,
And the impostors, ever courteous,
Invited him in for a closer look,
“Oh, look at the colours, the designs,
The embroidery,
Will they suit the emperor’s fancy?”
Breaking a sweat,
Lying through his teeth, the wizened man said,
“Oh yes, indeed!”
He left with a long, parting look,
Looked and looked,
But could see nothing, so to save face,
He yells, hollers, to everyone who would hear,
That there is nothing more sheer
Than the one resting on the loom.
He spoke of the fabrics, and the designs,
The dyes and at lengths
Of the material.
With each visit from an imperial courtesan,
The knaves filled their knapsacks,
While the courtiers returned liars.
With each man
Spewing the cloth’s glory,
Each of the people claimed,
There were none as wise as he.
The emperor, further intrigued,
By hearing only praises, ears well fatigued,
Decided, on the word of two very honest men,
That the fabric would surpass everything he had ever beheld.
And on, he went to where the crafty impostors rested,
Crooned, “These splendid designs, these glorious colours,
Will soon become yours.”
He looked and looked, but could not see
Even a single thread passing the loom
And yet, exclaimed, “How wonderful,
Marvellous, stupendous, charming!”
And proceeded to empty his vocabulary
Describing something that didn’t exist.
Following his lead, his retinue echoed
Made sounds of affirmation and some of awe
For who would want to be a fool?
(in a world of fools)
The gentlemen presented the pretend weavers
With a riband, an order of knighthood,
Fitted to their button holes,
With the pretentious title of “Gentlemen Weavers”
The day before the emperor would wear the cloth,
They stayed up all night,
Pretended to cut and roll and thread
The stuff of gods
And with the first light of dawn, announced,
“The emperor’s new clothes are ready!”
They brought one article of clothing after another,
A pretentious show with nothing raised,
“Here are the trousers!
Here is the scarf!
Here is the mantle!
Here is the garb!”
To the backdrop of ooh’s and aah’s.
They made the emperor stand
And while they undressed him while he stood,
Looking at himself through the looking mirror,
Arranged and pleated the fabric, adjusted it to his tone.
Once done, the king turned this way and that
A whole round at that,
He examined his handsome suit.
“Do my new clothes fit well?”
“Yes, better than any royal garb!”
“All my people deserve to behold this lovely cloth!”
He marched through the streets,
With four men behind, holding up his trail
Men from all around the town agreed,
That none of his majesty’s other robes
Had ever made such an impression,
As much as these invisible ones.
A meek voice from the back,
One not prone to the ways of the world, said,
“But he wears nothing!”
Hands cupped his mouth, and he was dragged away,
While the whispers passed on.
Long poem but I hope worth going through.
Ryan P Kinney Jan 2020
by Arthur  B.L. FOP

Looks as though the heavens have finally released the weight of the stars to the ground
As I marvel at this, a twinge of fear arises. In this modern age I warn humanity to not let the computer think for you.
being murdered by a knife is more painful than any other weapon
tools to assist in our quest for knowledge, but in a culture of instant gratification they can be easily abused
Essentially if people do not sufficiently exercise their own mental capacities mangling nuance out-of-order

assembled from works published by Beautiful Blasphemy and from the second Jigsaw Workshop
jeffrey conyers Jun 2019
You won't admit it.
You create your own conflicts.
Your image has been shot since the days of Bull Connor squad.

And still, this race problem exists.
The FOP can deny it.
And you can ride along.

But when a bunch of white officers responds to a situation.
One always create havoc.
And many minorities know why this is?

You barely live around them.
Or have much relation in dealing with them.
And finally many of you have no people skills.

It's not taught.
And then many forces hiring soldiers.
America best trained skilled killers to the force.

And honest afraid to admit they trained to shoot fire out of fear.
And until you recondition them to society operation.
They forever are police force problems.

Many aware if you create hell with citizens?
Hell will come back to you.
You see it
When many rather have a shoot out with you.

Instead of surrender to you.

Life is precious in both ways.

— The End —