The darkest humorist:
makes light my fears,
so that this floating ship
will not sink
some 20,000 leagues
under it's panicked weight,
pointing to six exits,
laughing, she straps me to a chair
and tells me,
"The place we are all going--
soon, we'll be there."

Just watched last interview
With A. B. with love and disdain

Smart guy, funny guy, vain
Vanity is earned; he did that

He grew as a humanist
Absolutely a humorist

My cooking confidential:
Be on time. Be organized.

Be forceful but kind
Clean your wheel quickly

Restaurants taught me much
Travel taught me more

And Anthony, you SOB
Your lessons will stay with me


https://m.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=vUEFdWAKpf0

It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,
He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.
He loitered here he loitered there, till he was like to drop,
Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop.
"Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark,
I'll go and do the Sydney toff up home in Ironbark."
The barber man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are,
He wore a strike-your-fancy sash he smoked a huge cigar;
He was a humorist of note and keen at repartee,
He laid the odds and kept a "tote", whatever that may be,
And when he saw our friend arrive, he whispered, "Here's a lark!
Just watch me catch him all alive, this man from Ironbark."

There were some gilded youths that sat along the barber's wall.
Their eyes were dull, their heads were flat, they had no brains at all;
To them the barber passed the wink his dexter eyelid shut,
"I'll make this bloomin' yokel think his bloomin' throat is cut."
And as he soaped and rubbed it in he made a rude remark:
"I s'pose the flats is pretty green up there in Ironbark."

A grunt was all reply he got; he shaved the bushman's chin,
Then made the water boiling hot and dipped the razor in.
He raised his hand, his brow grew black, he paused awhile to gloat,
Then slashed the red-hot razor-back across his victim's throat;
Upon the newly-shaven skin it made a livid mark
No doubt, it fairly took him in — the man from Ironbark.

He fetched a wild up-country yell might wake the dead to hear,
And though his throat, he knew full well, was cut from ear to ear,
He struggled gamely to his feet, and faced the murd'rous foe:
"You've done for me! you dog, I'm beat! One hit before I go!
I only wish I had a knife, you blessed murdering shark!
But you'll remember all your life the man from Ironbark."

He lifted up his hairy paw, with one tremendous clout
He landed on the barber's jaw, and knocked the barber out.
He set to work with nail and tooth, he made the place a wreck;
He grabbed the nearest gilded youth, and tried to break his neck.
And all the while his throat he held to save his vital spark,
And "******! ****** ******!" yelled the man from Ironbark.

A peeler man who heard the din came in to see the show;
He tried to run the bushman in, but he refused to go.
And when at last the barber spoke, and said "'Twas all in fun'
T’was just a little harmless joke, a trifle overdone."
"A joke!" he cried, "By George, that's fine; a lively sort of lark;
I'd like to catch that murdering swine some night in Ironbark."

And now while round the shearing floor the list'ning shearers gape,
He tells the story o'er and o'er, and brags of his escape.
"Them barber chaps what keeps a tote, By George, I've had enough,
One tried to cut my bloomin' throat, but thank the Lord it's tough."
And whether he's believed or no, there's one thing to remark,
That flowing beards are all the go way up in Ironbark.

I observe: “Our sentimental friend the moon!
Or possibly (fantastic, I confess)
It may be Prester John’s balloon
Or an old battered lantern hung aloft
To light poor travellers to their distress.”
  She then: “How you digress!”

And I then: “Someone frames upon the keys
That exquisite nocturne, with which we explain
The night and moonshine; music which we seize
To body forth our own vacuity.”
  She then: “Does this refer to me?”
  “Oh no, it is I who am inane.”

“You, madam, are the eternal humorist,
The eternal enemy of the absolute,
Giving our vagrant moods the slightest twist!
With your air indifferent and imperious
At a stroke our mad poetics to confute—”
  And—”Are we then so serious?”

Twain with his wit, to some, was an ear pain
Mark, a pen name, his words to heed, no disdain
Samuel Clemens, the humorist man was a gifted teller of story
Penned, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, innocent boyhood glory.

Animated by twitch of muscle,
Electric spark through live wire,
Humming rail and synapse,
Wheels spin at the fingertips of maybe
An ineffable humorist,
The mastermind of this beautiful prank
Pocketwatch of silver and gold
That explodes in the hand
And leaves you stranded on the platform
The second you go to check the time.

Hi. I am Art Buchwald
and I just died

          no sooner had he finished his last words
          than I heard a baby’s first cry

Hi. I am Art Buchwald
and I was just born

Die Maske des Bösen (“The Mask of Evil”)
by Bertolt Brecht
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

A Japanese woodcarving hangs on my wall—
the mask of an ancient demon, limned with golden lacquer.
Not unsympathetically, I observe
the forehead’s bulging veins,
the strain
such malevolence requires.

Original German text:

Die Maske des Bösen

An meiner Wand hängt ein japanisches Holzwerk
Maske eines bösen Dämons, bemalt mit Goldlack.
Mitfühlend sehe ich
Die geschwollenen Stirnadern, andeutend
Wie anstrengend es ist, böse zu sein.

Bertolt Brecht [1898-1956] was a major German poet, playwright, novelist, humorist, essayist, theater director and songwriter. Brecht fled Germany in 1933, when ****** assumed power. A number of Brecht's poems were written from the perspective of a man who sees his country becoming increasingly fascist, xenophobic and militaristic. Keywords/Tags: Bertolt Brecht, German, translation, Holocaust, poem, Japanese, carving, mask, demon, evil, malevolence, sympathy, compassion, understanding, feeling, forehead, veins, swollen, bulging, effort, strain, exhausting, concentration, suggest, suggesting, suggestive, demonstrating, revealing, showing, wall, gold, golden, lacquer, paint, woodwork, totem, malice, hatred, enmity, spite, spitefulness, animosity, anger, maliciousness, malignancy, venom, spleen, viciousness

Bertolt Brecht Epigrams and Quotations

These are my modern English translations of epigrams and quotations by Bertolt Brecht.

Everyone chases the way happiness feels,
unaware how it nips at their heels.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The world of learning takes a crazy turn
when teachers are taught to discern!
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Unhappy, the land that lacks heroes.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hungry man, reach for the book:
it's a hook,
a harpoon.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Because things are the way they are,
things can never stay as they were.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

War is like love; true ...
it finds a way through.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

What happens to the hole
when the cheese is no longer whole?
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is easier to rob by setting up a bank
than by threatening the poor clerk.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Do not fear death so much, or strife,
but rather fear the inadequate life.
— loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Keywords/Tags: Bertolt Brecht, translation, translations, German,  modern English, epigram, epigrams, quote, quotes, quotations

My Heart is Drenched in Why’s

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

climb to my listening post,
poet-on-the-roof, willing every step,
climb way up to the top of the stairs,
entrance marked POETRY, courtesy
of the bldg. super, an olden friend,
a concerned citizen, humorist, human,
somedays nurse to his corona haloed tenants.

the view of the ******, not laudatory, visible in a 360  degree perspective is of city grunched, scrunched,  covered in
in silent spoke poems, overused views, words that don’t change
a thing, for my heart sees only dimly, being that my disheartened
vision is drenched, diminished, disabled by and in why’s.

ask seer~super what rhymes with why, smiling, an instantaneous poetry helper, having created, an officiel expert, as in everything, reply’s  “why, why most famously rhymes with, why, everyone knows is try!”

so I try, three times, try, try, try again to puzzle
why, my heart is drenched in magenta,
who has willed this, not I, my distilled voice,
wants, does roof shout, but try as I might,
the reverb of unanswered is the slap of more
drenching, quiet silencing, and the weightiness
of too many weightless words returned stamped
“no forwarding address, and we know not why.”

Le Madam

She is most like her age

Time having eroded some of her natural beauty

A few warts have appeared here and there in spots

Yet there is this blend of young and old alike melded into one

She has transformed herself from bilingual to multi-lingual

Despite this her character has little changed over a long existence

The night life she relishes still as vibrant as ever

If she was a building one would say she had age and charm

Her busyness belies her serenity

Blessed with a deep history she exudes confidence

Allowing her to grow and prosper

Into whom she is today

Nothing can dampen her spirit it seems

Though sometimes turbulent periods have been had

Through it all a humorist slant developed and enjoyed by many

Her name Montreal

Andreas Simic©

Ma's other half,
Our chief of staff,
The house custodian,
His grandkids' guardian,
Always the humorist,
Seasoned saxophonist,
Spiritually rooted,
Retired but lauded,
Champion of good reason,
Father for all seasons.

Resist all negativity
Exist are opportunity
Perfectionist  is normal
Psychologist helps others
Vocalist sings a song
Assist people in need
Specialist saves lives
Humorist speaks humor
Mist outside rain
Kiss goodbye pain

I am a realist.
I'm an artist.
I'm a humanist.
And a humorist.

I'm an atheist.

Yet, I am gob-smacked, daily,
By the beauty of this ephemeral world,
I am flamboozled, daily,
By its dire contradictions.

Stories of people being horrendous.
Stories of people being stupendous.

On the cliff-ride of hope,
I hold tight to a string
That floats above despair.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                 A Prisoner’s Modest Dream

Some humorist on parade: “When the war is over…I’m going to buy a German and keep him the garden and count him.”

                    -Wodehouse in a German detention camp,
     quoted in Frances Donaldson’s P. G. Wodehouse: A Biography

When this is all over I pray for us
To sit in in my yard in some cheap Wal-Mart chairs
Each of us with a beer and a cigar
We could talk about the joys of fresh air

We could talk about our families and our work
And air-conditioning, and our home addresses
No longer A-43-Upper or B-24-Lower
We could sing about the Day of Jubilee

And give our voices and our lives to God
And there wouldn’t ever be a head count