"messrs" poems
Hioheprenazine dreams
In sight of crispy creams
Computerized cognitive testing
I found her body arresting
The women wanted Jean Beliveau to buy them
Firm white peaches - so he fried them
Yonder girl bit in with a left arm left useless
All taxation claims hence were baseless
I recall pineapple scented gin was popular
Like the movies of Francis Ford Coppola
Raining over south Napa Valley
Into the arms of Kirstie Alley.
Sep 28, 2016
Sep 28, 2016 at 5:31 PM UTC
There’s no arguing that idealism has its place,
For if it does not flower, bloom, and spread its seeds
As the dying dandelion casts downy remnants hither and yon,
Then we have wept our tears and trodden in funereal processions
In pursuit of nothing more tangible than the wind itself.
That said, my boys, we shan’t live out our days
In some misty fairyland where the streams run with single-malt
And the trees are heavy with lamb and rashers;
This world can be a bitter, unpleasant place
(The unconditional love of mankind
Being the sole province of Our Saviour)
Where a man will give his wife a quick peck goodbye,
Then give a swift kick to a limping puppy sitting on the stoop,
Or the kindly veterinary will raise a lovely mouse
Just below his missus’ right eye
Upon returning from his local on a Friday night.
That ‘s the game as it’s played on this pitch,
And injury time has a whole new meaning here, lads,
For many’s the striker who is carried off
With pennies over his eyes.
Again, we have no quibble with Locke, Voltaire,
And the rights of man,
But know this: your leaflets will tear and blow away,
And speeches which roll through Parliament and trade union halls
Like great thunderstorms which blow in from the North Sea
Shall fade into the silence of minutes bound and shelved away
In some corner of the vast library of the forgotten.
You may shun the handwork of Messrs. Lee and Enfield,
Simpering that the rifle is the gavel of the coward,
That the garrote plays the music of the ******
Tell us, then, where the bravery lies in scribbling crimson prose
While ensconced in the warmth and safety of your rooms,
What dignity is gained by meekly dropping your gaze
When confronted by the stare of the Black and Tans?
There is no valor in sighting down windmills.
Feb 7, 2017
Feb 7, 2017 at 10:02 AM UTC
There's a ghost in your cabin.
Messrs Johstone and Blanch
were hang in the snow lands,
but i am not bound
older than birch
heavens no longer favoured,
familiar yet strange
a certain askance necessitates in advance,
for any half truth confessed
beyond words.
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 8:40 AM UTC
Tis all pre apocalyptic.
Weather warnings, walking strangers.
Tartars and martyrs.
Mystical messrs.
Mothers and daughter.
The devil he caught her.
People are scared, if anyone cared.
Tearing their hair out as, if silly string.
The birds flying backwards.
They're losing their wings.
Impromptu performance.
Encouraged encounters.
With wise men and sages, as was writ on the pages of folklore.
Then criminal law.
It's just being broke.
By the sisters and tartars,
My God they awoke.
Wearing suits fashioned in satin by tailors, bespoke.
Wrapped in screens made out of smoke.
World became scared.
Most sacred Tatari awakes.
(c) Livvi MMCV
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 9:09 AM UTC
(POSTSCRIPT TO AUTHOR'S NOTE: As the bit of my brain which allows me to actually complete a piece of writing seems to have gone on hiatus, this chestnut is re-submitted for your approval)
We’d stumbled upon it simply by chance,
Playing on a channel heretofore unknown to us,
Almost as if the remote, in a final, desperate attempt
To escape the CGI-augmented Britneys and Biebers,
Had taken matters into its own hands and steered us there
(Indeed, when we tried to find that channel later,
It had gone a-gleaming, replaced by some lower-case Telemundo)
Presenting no outsized and over-decibeled spectacle
But a stark, quiet, indeed all but silent black-and-white panorama
Where a distinctly un-scrubbed and un-homogenized Santa
Delivers no new cars, no cartoon-mouse vacation cavalcade,
No million dollar prize from some scripted faux-survival experience,
But those things from the realm of the small, the subtle:
A sweater, a meal, a bottle for those not overwhelmed by the contents,
All courtesy of a purveyor of gifts seeking nothing more
Than to provide some measure of comfort and joy
For those who were well short on either.
It all tends toward the romantic and maudlin a bit,
One could contend
(And, indeed, did not the teleplay’s progenitor
Insist on spending his eternity on a lonely hilltop,
In order that he could have an unobstructed view
Of the cold, narrow lake
For which he’d formed such an improbable and irrational fondness?)
And those who take such a position may very well be right,
But it is equally likely that we could be better men in a better place
If the notion that we could rise above
Our tin-can and yowling-tabby tribulations
And embrace that within ourselves which is child-like and yet saintly
Was submitted for our consideration on more than an annual basis.
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: This poem owes a considerable debt to the December 23, 1960 episode of The Twilght Zone. The episode, entitled "The Night of the Meek", features Art Carney as a decidedly down-on-his-luck department store Santa who receives a helping hand courtesy of Messrs. Serling and Claus.)
Dec 24, 2019
Dec 24, 2019 at 9:31 AM UTC