All of this just so happened
With the saying of one simple phrase
"Beam me up Scotty"
Was all The Captain had said

But all that came aboard
Was Captain Kirk's toupee
Never did they see James again
After that fateful day

Now Captain Kirk's toupee
Is the one that's running the ship
Barking out its orders
From where the Captain once sat

It's little wonder the toupee and the crew
Don't see eye to eye
As it continues throughout its screaming
Can't you see I need more warp drive

With Scotty hollering back
I'm giving her all that's she's got
Thinking the whole time the Captain's toupee
Would make a good galley mop

Spock while all this is happening
Struggles to keep a straight face
Which is really hard for a Vulcan to do
When dealing with a demanding toupee

Of course like James T. Kirk
His toupee has a thing for alien gals
Which leaves the ladies throughout the galaxy
All with a bad taste and hair in their mouths

And not to mention the trouble with the Klingon's
Now they have no idea what to say
How in the world do you wage war
When your arch enemy is a bad toupee

It's little surprise this all lead to a mutiny
Of the Starship Enterprise crew
The day they grabbed the toupee
And ran to the transporter room

They all wondered what took them so long
The idea it was so blatantly simple
As they beamed away Kirk's toupee
Down to the surface of the Planet of Tribble's

All of this just so happened
With the saying of one simple phrase
"Beam me up Scotty"
Was all The Captain had said

But all that came aboard
Was Captain Kirk's toupee
Never did they see James again
After that fateful day

Now Captain Kirk's toupee
Is the one that's running the ship
Barking out its orders
From where the Captain once sat

It's little wonder the toupee and the crew
Don't see eye to eye
As it continues throughout its screaming
Can't you see I need more warp drive

With Scotty hollering back
I'm giving her all that's she's got
Thinking the whole time the Captain's toupee
Would make a good galley mop

Spock while all this is happening
Struggles to keep a straight face
Which is really hard for a Vulcan to do
When dealing with a demanding toupee

Of course like James T. Kirk
His toupee has a thing for alien gals
Which leaves the ladies throughout the galaxy
All with a bad taste and hair in their mouths

And not to mention the trouble with the Klingon's
Now they have no idea what to say
How in the world do you wage war
When your arch enemy is a bad toupee

It's little surprise this all lead to a mutiny
Of the Starship Enterprise crew
The day they grabbed the toupee
And ran to the transporter room

They all wondered what took them so long
The idea it was so blatantly simple
As they beamed away Kirk's toupee
Down to the surface of the Planet of Tribble's

All of this just so happened
With the saying of one simple phrase
"Beam me up Scotty"
Was all The Captain had said

But all that came aboard
Was Captain Kirk's toupee
Never did they see James again
After that fateful day

Now Captain Kirk's toupee
Is the one that's running the ship
Barking out its orders
From where the Captain once sat

It's little wonder the toupee and the crew
Don't see eye to eye
As it continues throughout its screaming
Can't you see I need more warp drive

With Scotty hollering back
I'm giving her all that's she's got
Thinking the whole time the Captain's toupee
Would make a good galley mop

Spock while all this is happening
Struggles to keep a straight face
Which is really hard for a Vulcan to do
When dealing with a demanding toupee

Of course like James T. Kirk
His toupee has a thing for alien gals
Which leaves the ladies throughout the galaxy
All with a bad taste and hair in their mouths

And not to mention the trouble with the Klingon's
Now they have no idea what to say
How in the world do you wage war
When your arch enemy is a bad toupee

It's little surprise this all lead to a mutiny
Of the Starship Enterprise crew
The day they grabbed the toupee
And ran to the transporter room

They all wondered what took them so long
The idea it was so blatantly simple
As they beamed away Kirk's toupee
Down to the surface of the Planet of Tribble's

There once was a man named Ray
Who had a wandering toupee
It oft fell from the top of his crown
Which caused him to always wear a frown
Sticking his toupee down would have alleviated his frown

This page contains several double limericks, a rare triple limerick, and a new version of the double dactyl that I invented, called the "dabble dactyl."



The Platypus: a Double Limerick
by Michael R. Burch

The platypus, myopic,
is ungainly, not ******.
His feet for bed
are over-webbed,
and what of his proboscis?

The platypus, though, is eager
although his means are meager.
His sight is poor;
perhaps he’ll score
with a passing duck or ******.



The Better Man: a Double Limerick
by Michael R. Burch

Dear Ed: I don’t understand why
you will publish this other guy—
when I’m brilliant, devoted,
one hell of a poet!
Yet you publish Anonymous. Fie!

Fie! A pox on your head if you favor
this poet who’s dubious, unsavor
y, inconsistent in texts,
no address (I checked!):
since he’s plagiarized Unknown, I’ll wager!



Hell to Pay: a Double Limerick
by Michael R. Burch

A messiah named Jesus, returning
from heaven, found his home planet burning
& with children unfed,
so he ventured: “Instead
of war, why not consider cheek-turning?”

Indignant right-wingers retorted:
“Sir, your pacifist views are distorted!
Just pull the plug quickly
on someone who’s sickly!
Our pursuit of war can’t be aborted!”



These poems form a double limerick:

No Bull
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a multi-pierced Bull,
who found playing hoops far too dull,
so he dated Madonna
but observed, “I don’t wanna
get married . . . the things she might pull!”

So this fast-thinking forward named Rodman
then said to his best man—“No problem!
When I marry Electra,
if the ring costs extra,
just yank a gold hoop off my ****, man!”



I once provided the second stanza to a famous limerick, turning it into a double limerick …

A wonderful bird is the pelican;
His beak can hold more than his belican.
He can hold in his beak
Enough food for a week,
Though I’m ****** if I know how the helican!

Enough with this pitiful pelican!
He’s awkward and stinks! Sense his smellican!
His beak's far too big,
so he eats like a pig,
and his breath reeks of fish, I can tellican!
—second stanza by Michael R. Burch


The next two poems form a double limerick with separate titles:

Time Out!
by Michael R. Burch

Hawking’s "Brief History of Time"
is such a relief! How sublime
that time, in reverse,
may un-write this verse
and un-spend my last thin dime!

Time Back In!
by Michael R. Burch

Hawking, who makes my head spin,
says time may flow backward. I grin,
imagining the surprise
in my mother's eyes
when I head for the womb once again!



This is another double limerick with separate titles:

Toupée or Not Toupée, That is the Question
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a brash billionaire
who couldn't afford decent hair.
Vexed voters agreed:
"We're a nation in need!"
But toupée the price, do we dare?

Toupée or Not Toupée, This is the Answer
by Michael R. Burch

Oh crap, we elected Trump prez!
Now he's Simon: we must do what he sez!
For if anyone thinks
And says his "plan" stinks,
He'll wig out 'neath that weird orange fez!



Not all double limericks are light affairs:

Self Reflection: a Double Limerick
by Michael R. Burch

for anyone struggling with self-image

She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm . . .
but she’s grossly unthin
when seen from within;
soon a griefstricken campus will mourn.

Yet she’d never once criticize
a friend for the size of her thighs.
Do unto others—
sisters and brothers?
Yes, but also ourselves, likewise.



Triple Limerick: Attention Span Gap
by Michael R. Burch

What if a poet, Shakespeare,
were still living to tweet to us here?
He couldn't write sonnets,
just couplets, doggonit,
and we wouldn't have Hamlet or Lear!

Yes, a sonnet may end in a couplet,
which we moderns can write in a doublet,
in a flash, like a tweet.
Does that make it complete?
Should a poem be reduced to a stublet?

Bring back that Grand Era when men
had attention spans long as their pens,
or rather the quills
of the monsieurs and fils
who gave us the Dress, not its hem!



Officious Notice: I have invented a ***** nonsense form: the "dabble dactyl." A dabble dactyl starts out like a double dactyl, but forgets the rules and changes horses midstream. Anyone who prefers order to chaos should give the dabble dactyl a wide berth and also not sow any wild oats.  Otherwise, “A little dabble’ll do ya.” — Michael R. Burch



Double Dactyls
by Michael R. Burch

Sniggledy-Wriggledy
Jesus Christ’s enterprise
leaves me in awe of
the rich men he loathed!

But why should a Sadducee
settle for trifles?
His disciples now rip off
the Lord they betrothed.



Donald Dabble Dactyl #1
by Michael R. Burch

Higgledy-Piggledy
Ronald McDonald
cursed Donald Trump, his
least favorite clown:

"Why should I try to be
funny as Donald? He
gets all the laughs,
claiming upside is down!"



Donald Dabble Dactyl #2
by Michael R. Burch

Wond’ringly, blund’ringly
Ronald McDonald
asked, “Who the hell
is this strange orange clown?”

“Why should I try to be
funny as Donald? He
gets all the laughs,
claiming upside is down!”



Donald Dabble Dactyl #3
by Michael R. Burch

Piggledy-Wiggledy
45th president,
or erstwhile manse resident,
perched on a throne

of gold-plated porcelain
matching his orange “tan,”
bombing Iran
from his twittery phone?



This famous limerick inspired my Einstein “relative” limericks:

There was a young lady named Bright
who traveled much faster than light.
She set out one day
in a relative way,
and came back the previous night.

I recently learned this poem was originally penned, in a slightly different version, by Arthur Henry Reginald Buller; his limerick appeared in Punch (Dec. 19, 1923). I find it intriguing that one of the best revelations of the weirdness and zaniness of relativity can be found in a limerick. I was inspired to pen multiple rejoinders:

The Cosmological Constant
by Michael R. Burch

Einstein, the frizzy-haired,
said E equals MC squared.
Thus all mass decreases
as activity ceases?
Not my mass, my *** declared!


***-tronomical
by Michael R. Burch

Relativity, the theorists’ creed,
says mass increases with speed.
My (m)*** grows when I sit it.
Mr. Einstein, get with it;
equate its deflation, I plead!


Relative Theory I
by Michael R. Burch

Einstein’s theory, incredibly silly,
says a relative grows, *****-nilly,
at speeds close to light.
Well, his relatives might,
but mine grow their (m)***** more stilly!


Relative Theory II
by Michael R. Burch

Einstein’s peculiar theory
excludes all my relatives, clearly,
since my relatives’ *****
increase their prone masses
while approaching light speed—not nearly!


Relative Theory III
by Michael R. Burch

Relativity, we’re led to believe,
proves masses increase with great speed.
But it seems my huge family
must be an anomaly;
since their (m)***** increase, gone to seed!



The Heimlich Limerick
by Michael R. Burch

for T. M.

The sanest of poets once wrote:
"Friend, why be a sheep or a goat?
Why follow the leader
or be a blind *******?"
But almost no one took note.


These are limericks of the singular variety …


Caveat Spender
by Michael R. Burch

It's better not to speculate
"continually" on who is great.
Though relentless awe's
a Célèbre Cause,
please reserve some time for the contemplation
of the perils of EXAGGERATION.


This is another of my scientific limericks …

Parting is such sweet sorrow
by Michael R. Burch

The universe is flying apart.
Hush, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s heart!
Repeat, repeat.
Don’t skip a beat.
Perhaps some new Big Bang will spark?


Low-T Hell
by Michael R. Burch

I’m living in low-T hell ...
My get-up has gone: Oh, swell!
I need to write checks
if I want to have ***,
and my love life depends on a gel!


ANIMAL LIMERICKS
A much-needed screed against licentious insects
by Michael R. Burch

after and apologies to Robert Schechter

Army ants? ARMY ants?
Yet so undisciplined to not wear pants?
How incredibly rude
to wage war in the ****!
We moralists call them SMARMY ants!


Dot Spotted
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a leopardess, Dot,
who indignantly answered: "I’ll not!
The gents are impressed
with the way that I’m dressed.
I wouldn’t change even one spot!"


Clyde Lied!
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a mockingbird, Clyde,
who bragged of his prowess, but lied.
To his new wife he sighed,
"When again, gentle bride?"
"Nevermore!" bright-eyed Raven replied.



The Dromedary and the Very Work-Wary Canary
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a dromedary
who befriended a crafty canary.
Budgie said, "You can’t sing,
but now, here’s the thing—
just think of the tunes you can carry!"


The Mallard
by Michael R. Burch

The mallard is a fellow
whose lips are long and yellow
with which he, honking, kisses
his *****, boisterous mistress:
my pond’s their loud bordello!


The Trouble with Elephants: a Word to the Wise
by Michael R. Burch

An elephant never forgets
and thus they don’t make the best pets:
Jumbo may well out-live you,
but he’ll never forgive you,
no matter how sincere your regrets!


The Limerick as Parody
Marvell-Less (I)
by Michael R. Burch

Mr. Marvell was ill-named? Inform us!
Alas, his crude writings deform us:
for when trying to bed
chaste virgins, he led
right off with his iron ***** ginormous!


Marvell-Less (II)
by Michael R. Burch

Andrew Marvell was far less than Marvellous;
indeed, he was cold, bold, unchivalrous:
for when trying to bed
chased/chaste virgins, he led
right off with his iron ***** ginormous!


Here's a limerick about one of the universe's greatest ironies: the lack of rhyme words for "poetry" and "limerick." I almost solved the latter, but fell a bit short:

Shelved Elves
by Michael R. Burch

I wanted to rhyme with “limerick”
and settled on “good old Saint Slimmer Nick”
about a dieting Claus,
but drawing no “ahs!”
I glumly rescinded the trimmer trick.


To show the flexibility of the limerick form, it has often been used for political purposes, and to expose, satirize and savage charlatans. Here are are two such limericks of mine:

Baked Alaskan

There is a strange yokel so flirty
she makes ****** seem icons of purity.
With all her winkin’ and blinkin’
Palin seems to be "thinkin’"—
"Ah culd save th’ free world ’cause ah’m purty!"

Copyright 2012 by Michael R. Burch
from Signs of the Apocalypse
all Rights and Violent Shudderings Reserved



Going Rogue in Rouge

It'll be hard to polish that apple
enough to make her seem palatable.
Though she's sweeter than Snapple
how can my mind grapple
with stupidity so nearly infallible?

Copyright 2012 by Michael R. Burch
from Signs of the Apocalypse
all Rights and Violent Shudderings Reserved



I have even written limericks about religion, mostly heretical limericks:

Pell-Mell for Hell Mel
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a Baptist named Mel
who condemned all non-Christians to hell.
When he stood before God
he felt like a clod
to discover His Love couldn’t fail!


Why I Left the Religious Right
by Michael R. Burch

He's got Jesus's name on a wallet insert
and "Hell is for Queers" on the back of his shirt
and he upholds the Law,
for grace has a flaw:
the Church must have someone to drag through the dirt.



Ribbing Adam
by Michael R. Burch

“Dear Lord,” fretted Adam, depressed,
“did that **** really rupture my chest?”
“Yes she did,” piped his Maker,
“but of course you can’t take her,
or I’d fry you in hell, for ******!”



There was an old man from Peru
who dreamed he was eating his shoe.
He awoke one dark night
from a terrible fright
to discover his dream had come true!
—Variation on a classic limerick by Michael R. Burch


There once was a poet from Nashville
which hockey fans rechristened Smashville,
but his odd limericks
pulled so many weird tricks
his pale peers now prefer Ogden Gnashville.
—Michael R. Burch


There once was a poet from Tennessee
who was known to indulge in straight Hennessey
for his heart had been broken
and cruelly ripped open
by an ice-hoarding Dame of Paree.
—Michael R. Burch


Here's one for the poets:

The Beat Goes On (and On and On and On ...)
by Michael R. Burch

Bored stiff by his board-stiff attempts
at “meter,” I crossly concluded
I’d use each iamb
in lieu of a lamb,
bedtimes when I’m under-quaaluded.


Here's one for the Flintstones:

Early Warning System
by Michael R. Burch

A hairy thick troglodyte, Mary,
squinched dingles excessively airy.
To her family’s deep shame,
their condo became
the first cave to employ a canary!


Donald Trump Limericks aka Slimericks

Viral Donald
by Michael R. Burch

Donald Trump is coronaviral:
his brain's in a downward spiral.
That pale nimbus of hair
proves there's nothing up there
but an empty skull, fluff and denial.


Stumped and Stomped by Trump
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a candidate, Trump,
whose message rang clear at the stump:
"Vote for me, wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!,
because I am ME,
and everyone else is a chump!"


Humpty Trumpty
by Michael R. Burch

Humpty Trumpty called for a wall.
Trumpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Now all the Grand Wizards
and Faux PR men
Can never put Trumpty together again.


White as a Sheet
by Michael R. Burch

Donald Trump had a real Twitter Scare
then rushed off to fret, vent and share:
“How dare Bernie quote
what I just said and wrote?
Like Megyn he’s mean, cruel, unfair!”


15 Seconds
by Michael R. Burch

Our president’s *** life—atrocious!
His "briefings"—bizarre hocus-pocus!
Politics—a shell game!
My brief moment of fame
flashed by before Oprah could notice!


Trump’s Golden Rule
by Michael R. Burch

Donald Trump is the victim of leaks!
Golden showers are NOT things he seeks!
Though he dearly loves soaking
the women he’s groping,
get real, 'cause he pees ON the meek!


Cancun Cruz
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a senator, Cruz,
whose whole life was one pus-oozing schmooze.
When Trump called his wife ugly,
Cruz brown-nosed him smugly,
then went on a sweet Cancún cruise!


Anchors Aweigh!
by Michael R. Burch

There once was an anchor babe, Cruz,
whose deployment was Castro’s bold ruse.
Now the revenge of Fidel
has worked out quite well
as Cruz missiles launch from his caboose!


Canadian Cruz
by Michael R. Burch

There was a Canadian, Cruz,
an anchor babe with a bold ruse:
he’d take Texas first
and then do his worst
to infect the whole world with his views.


Eerie Dearie
by Michael R. Burch

A trembling young auditor, white
as a sheet, like a ghost in the night,
saw his dreams, his career
in a ****!, disappear,
and then, strangely Enronic, his wife.

Fortune named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years, but the company went bankrupt and vanished after its accounting practices were determined to be fraudulent.


The Vampire's Spa Day Dream
by Michael R. Burch

O, to swim in vats of blood!
I wish I could, I wish I could!
O, 'twould be
so heavenly
to swim in lovely vats of blood!

The poem above was inspired by a Josh Parkinson depiction of Elizabeth Bathory swimming up to her nostrils in the blood of her victims, with their skulls floating in the background.



***** LIMERICKS



A randy young dandy named Sadie
loves ***, but in forms reckoned shady.
(I cannot, of course,
involve her poor horse,
but it’s safe to infer she's no lady!)
—Michael R. Burch


There was a lewd ***** from Nantucket
who intended to *** in a bucket;
but being a man
she missed the **** can
and her rattled johns fled, crying: "**** it!"
—Variation on a classic limerick by Michael R. Burch


Here are three "linked" Nantucket limericks of mine, forming a triple limerick:

There was a coarse ***** of Nantucket
whose bush needed someone to pluck it
’cause it looked like a chimp’s
and her johns were limp gimps
who were too scared to **** it or **** it.

So that coarse, canny ***** of Nantucket,
once ****-shaved, decided to shuck it
—that thick, wiry pelt
that smelled like wet felt—
and made it a toupee for Luckett.

Now Luckett, once bald as an eagle,
like Samson, stands handsome and regal
with hair to his ***
that smells like his lass,
but still comes when she calls, like a beagle.
—a triple limerick by Michael R. Burch


Shotgun Bedding

A pedestrian pediatrician
set out on a dangerous mission;
though his child bride, ******,
was a sweet senorita,
her pa's shotgun cut off his emissions.
—Michael R. Burch



Untitled Limericks

There was a young lady from France
Who’d let cute boys poke in her pants:
They'd give her the finger
Where she'd let them linger
because that's the point of romance!
—Michael R. Burch


There once was a girl with small *****
who would only go out with young rubes,
but their ***** were too small
so she sentenced them all
to kissing her fallopian tubes.
—Michael R. Burch


A coquettish young lady of France
longed to have ***** men in her pants,
but in lieu of real joys
she settled for boys,
then berated her lack of romance.
—Michael R. Burch


A virginal lady of France
longed to have a ménage in her pants
but in lieu of real boys
she settled for toys
& painted pinkies to make her bits dance.
—Michael R. Burch


A germane young German, a dame
with a quite unpronounceable name,
Frenched me a kiss;
I admonished her, "Miss,
you’ve left me twice tongue-tied, for shame!"
—Michael R. Burch


A germane young German, a dame
with a quite unpronounceable name,
gave me a kiss;
I lectured her, "Miss,
we haven't been intro'd, for shame!"
—Michael R. Burch


A germane young German, a dame
with a quite unpronounceable name,
French-kissed me and left my lips lame.
I lectured her, "Miss,
That's a premature kiss!
We haven't been intro'd, for shame!"
Michael R. Burch


Four Limericks  plus one Lead-In Poem

Updated Advice to Amorous Bachelors
by Michael R. Burch

At six-thirty,
feeling flirty,
I put on the hurdy-gurdy ...

But Ms. Purdy,
all alert-y,
kicked me where I’m sore and hurty.

The moral of my story?
To avoid a fate as gory,
flirt with gals a bit more *****-y!



Mating Calls
by Michael R. Burch

1.
Nine-thirty? Feeling flirty (and, indeed, a trifle *****),
I decided to ring prudish Eleanor Purdy ...
When I rang her to bang her,
it seems my words stang her!
She hung up the phone, so I banged off, alone.

2.
Still dreaming to hold something skirty,
I once again rang our reclusive Miss Purdy.
She sounded unhappy,
called me “daffy” and “sappy,”
and that was before the gal heard me!

3.
It was early A.M., ’bout two-thirty,
when I enquired again with the regal Miss Purdy.
With a voice full of hate,
she thundered, “It’s LATE!”
Was I, perhaps, over-wordy?

4.
It was probably close to four-thirty
the last time I called the miserly Purdy.
Although I’m her boarder,
the restraining order
freezes all assets of that virginity hoarder!



Teeter Tots
by Michael R. Burch

For your spuds to become Tater Tots,
First, artfully cut out the knots,
Then dice them into tiny cubes,
Deep fry them, and serve them to rubes
(but not if they’re acting like snots).



Golden Years?
by Michael R. Burch

I’m getting old.
My legs are cold.
My book’s unsold and my wife’s a scold.
Now the only gold’s
in my teeth.
I fold.



Trump Limericks aka Slimericks



The Nazis now think things’re grand.
The KKK’s hirin’ a band.
Putin’s computin’
Less Ukrainian shootin’.
They’re hootin’ ’cause Trump’s win is planned.
—Michael R. Burch



Trump comes with a few grotesque catches:
He likes to ***** unoffered snatches;
He loves to ICE kids;
His brain’s on the skids;
And then there’s the coups the fiend hatches.
—Michael R. Burch



Trump’s Saddest Tweet to Date
by Michael R. Burch

I’ve gotten all out of kilter.
My erstwhile yuge tool is a wilter!
I now sleep in bed.
Few hairs on my head.
Inhibitions? I now have no filter!



the best of all possible whirls, for MAGA
by Michael R. Burch

ive made a mistake or two.
okay, maybe quite more than a few:
mistakes by the millions,
the billions and zillions,
but remember: ur LORD made u!

where were u when HEE passed out brains?
or did u politely abstain?
u call GAUD “infallible”
when HEE made u so gullible
u cant come inside when Trump reigns.



Scratch-n-Sniff
by Michael R. Burch

The world’s first antinatalist limerick?

Life comes with a terrible catch:
It’s like starting a fire with a match.
Though the flames may delight
In the dark of the night,
In the end what remains from the scratch?



Time Out!
by Michael R. Burch

Time is at war with my body!
am i Time’s most diligent hobby?
for there’s never Time out
from my low-t and gout
and my once-brilliant mind has grown stodgy!



Waiting Game
by Michael R. Burch

Nothing much to live for,
yet no good reason to die:
life became
a waiting game...
Rain from a clear blue sky.



*******' Ripples
by Michael R. Burch

Men are scared of *******:
that’s why they can’t be seen.
For if they were,
we’d go to war
as in the days of Troy, I ween.



Devil’s Wheel
by Michael R. Burch

A billion men saw your pink ******.
What will the pard say to you, Sundays?
Yes, your ******* were cute,
but the shocked Devil, mute,
now worries about reckless fundies.



A ***** Goes ****
by Michael R. Burch

She wore near-invisible *******
and, my, she looked good in her scanties!
But the real nudists claimed
she was “over-framed.”
Now she’s bare-assed and shocking her aunties!



MVP!
by Michael R. Burch

Will Ohtani hit 65 homers,
win the Cy Young by striking out Gomers,
make it cute and okay
to write KKK
while inspiring rhyme-challenged poemers?

Will Ohtani hit 65homers,
win the Cy Young by striking out Gomers,
prove the nemesis
of white supremacists
while inspiring rhyme-challenged poemers?

Will Ohtani hit 65 homers,
win the Cy Young by striking out Gomers,
cause supremacists
to cease and desist
while inspiring rhyme-challenged poemers?

Keywords/Tags: limerick, limericks, double limerick, triple limerick, humor, light verse, nonsense verse, doggerel, humor, humorous verse, light poetry, *****, ribald, irreverent, funny, satire, satirical

!да да да!

darling daughter chews dad's toupee
when she has her fill
Fido takes over

toupee or not toupee
the hairpiece is having
a bad hair day

Fido and next door's doggie
engage in snarling tug o' war
oops that's torn it

dad now looking like a monk
his bald spot badly
sunburnt

darling daughter kisses
where the hairpiece ought to be
claps and slaps: Da...Da...Da. . .DA!"

it is the only word she knows
in Russian
the world is just one big Yes!

it's true
the revolution will not be televised
but the fascist revival premiered
on all the major networks' corporate channels
in 1080p HD at prime-time hours

with perfect clarity
viewers could see
an oompa loompa
with an orange toupee
a xenophobe
spewing violence and vitriol
peddling snake oil while spitting venom
stirring a bubbling cauldron
spilling over in fear-mongering demagoguery
served like crack candy to the Republican elite
reveling in their privilege
cheering white supremacy

a tyrant
tirading behind a polished wooden podium
flanked by hues of red white blue and gilded gold
like some comic strip super-villain
but this obtuse excuse for human refuse
is not some Saturday morning cartoon
defeated by the heroes after 30 minutes
of selfless feats and epic deeds
a death dirge plays on repeat in the background

you can't always get what you want

meanwhile
we're holding silent vigils back home
carving the sigil of Orlando's skyline into our skin
while a snake slithers into a City Beautiful
bedecked in her $3k pressed pant-suit
leering wolfishly at a local club for LGBTQ+ youth
the downtown heartbeat
of outcasts and misfits
a Pulse
that bigotry and self-hatred couldn't *****

but tragedies are converted to cheap currencies
in the clawed hands of dynastic oligarchs
sporting the support of billionaires and super-PACs
she knows the Establishment has got her back
she'll shed crocodile tears
just in time for the photo-ops

violence begets violence begets violence
humanity's universal language
a tongue shared by despots and presidents
in the wake of stolen sanctuaries
she'll justify razing Syrian children
beneath a barrage of hellfire missiles
and predator drones targeting cell-phone signals
under the pretense of bringing the terrorists
to some sycophantic mirage of justice

we're manufacturing new soldiers
for the Caliphate to brainwash with promises
of dead gods and seventy-two virgins
machine-fed by automatic weapons
to the toothy jaws
that bottomless maw
of endless ******* war
which always vaunts
profit over people

the conceptual construct of gender binarism
becomes an imperceptible selling point
in the incomprehensible and reprehensible rhetoric
issuing from either side of the political aisle
but what will it matter
either way
an egoistic megalomaniac
has his or her finger poised over the trigger
a neoliberal warmonger and hypocritical fraud
or a reality TV star who lauds the KKK on Twitter

our only hope is found in the streets
unchained by compassion's transformative capacity
freed to utilize our minds
humanity's indomitable faculty
nurturing a community that seizes life
in anthems of liberty equality and solidarity
anarchic manifestoes penned in lines
of red and black ink

progressives will insist otherwise
they'll declare emphatically that our only choice
lies in selecting the lesser of two evils
to lead us to the brink of oblivion
but Orwell wrote the future of humanity
looked like a boot crushing our heads
that either way we'd all be dead
and the harsh reality is that the soot-stained sole
curb-stomping this country
fits both the left and right foot

I didn't sleep last night

Tossing and turning from another body count driven by a terrorist organization with no true goal then to cause mayhem

God take me back to the USSR

The statues of blue collared workers in the streets

It wouldn't matter if you were a carpenter, a doctor, or a farmer.

You were all on the same train heading to your families at the end of the day.

Take me back to the time people didn't profit off the water sold to the thirsty

Take me back to the day when people didn't drive a dollar from the sicks oxygen

By god take me to when a potato farmer wasn't spending more for his dirt then he was getting in return for his natural resources

I am *******.

The generation we are growing up in is being coddled.

Our hands don't need to be held because we are forming our own opinions that have been foreign to you.

We believe in what happened behind your door is your business.

Because love is love and we are all in this world together
  
Your generation has not always picked the best leader.

This time isn't seeming any different.

How can we appoint a man that isn't confident enough to show his bald spot and is forced to wear a toupee.

Well let me tell you something.

America is bald. And there is no toupee to cover up are **** ups  

We are not a broken generation we are just being shadowed by forefathers that set guidelines for a corrupt corporate government.

Sit the **** down and give us our voice back

Or we will pack up.

And go back to the USSR

God please take me back to the USSR

At this time of my life
I find myself wearing hats…
I’m not happy with my head you see,
In short, being able to see it
it just doesn’t thrill me.
Not through those depressing, disappearing strands.
So it’s that time - It’s hat time!

Hats are warm, comforting things;
take it off and, for a while at least,
it feels still there - a phantom hat.
Not quite as spooky or worrying
as a phantom arm or leg - after that
severed limb thing, but right there!
It really is that time - It’s hat time!

My Grandma Lamplough,
that’s on my mother’s side,
was an avid knitter of things to order,
She was even a freelancer for Jaeger…
matinée jackets, mittens, cardies, pullovers
But in later days mostly just tea cosies.
If there was no immediate customer in mind…
“Everybody needs a cosy and one size fits all”
she would say… and anyway,
commissions were rare for cosies back in the day

She’d wear it boldly herself
with handle and spout slots front & back, proud
She’d start the next one and announce
to every visitor right out loud…
”Hey…Do you want a cosy for your ***?
Mr Watling, the milkman, he had quite a lot!
But then he showed up every day!
A quart is it Mrs L?… and yes, I WILL have a cosy today!

Me? I’ve never fancied a toupee, wig
or go in for a Bobby Charlton tribute gig ….
I’ll be happy just to settle for a beret,
news boy or Fedora… to hide the offending pate
and avoid the comb over till a later date.
Meanwhile I’ll maybe settle for Grandma’s cosy special?

I woke from sleep and looked outside today
to see that spring has sprung from infancy,
grass still wearing some snow like a toupee
and squirrels that are all but finicky.
I try to process all this imagery,
but my emotions are over my head,
so I sit in bed and smile wistfully.
I could be forthright with what should be said
and risk that it is misinterpreted,
or I could keep it in and let it go
and watch the opportunity lie dead.
Each spring a rose must bloom to be full grown
and blossom for everybody to see,
it's time I show the world who I can be.

!да да да!

darling daughter
chews
dad's toupee

when she has her fill
Fido takes over

toupee or not toupee
the hairpiece is having
a bad hair day

Fido and next door's doggie
engage in snarling tug o' war
oops that's torn it

dad now looking like a monk
his bald spot badly
sunburnt

darling daughter kisses
where the hairpiece ought to be
claps and slaps: Da...Da...Da. . .DA!"

it is the only word she knows
in Russian
the world is just one big Yes!

In those apricot-tinged nirvana days,
cigar smoke filled the stuffy restaurant in which we ate.
At the table across from us sat a couple in their fourties,
Him, a toupee-wearing, finger-clicking car salesman,
and Her, the blonde in a tight dress,
glossy white mink and even glossier white stilettos.

She talked enthusiastically about the new eastern religions,
Groups that offered "clarity" and "spiritual guidance" to the dissatisfied Miami girls such as herself.

She said that she wanted a new way of life.
(Secretly, she wanted the young guru who'd promised it to her.)
Toupee protested:
"But honey, we ain't no slaves to the machine!"
The gold Casio watch on his wrist and the tacky pearls she sported said otherwise.

Alcohol encourages unusual behaviors,
As many may attest;
The fruit of drunkenness,
Embarrassment.

When I was ten, I saw a thing,
I've been reluctant to report,
But 45 years have come and gone,
And I find I have to tell someone
The tale of Christmas at my Gran's.

The neighbors came by invitation,
Arriving in style for a rural celebration,
In steady form, as alcoholics will maintain,
Little wobble in their walk,
Little slurring in their conversation.

What struck us into consternation,
Was Charlie's hairpiece, new and black,
Banded at one end, a horsetail piece,
Inverted and trimmed into a toupee,
How he'd figured out the thing,
Only alcohol could say.

The evening was funny,
With everyone not staring,
Taking sideways glances,
I'd say, "Please pass the peas,"
And look the other way,
Grinning slyly at my brother,
I ignored the warning glares
Coming from our mother.

The dining room grew warm,
With food and warming ovens,
My father trying to lead a conversation
About cows, and horses, Grandma's fritters,
Anything to keep the room from titters.

When old Charlie commenced sweating,
The crow-ish blackness of his hair
Revealed its shoe polish beginnings,
Trickling down behind his ears,
And then a rivulet released its flow
To wend its way beside his nose,
And dripping, dripping down, began
To drench his shirt, first the collar,
Vaulting lapels to his middle,
Until a river of black sweat
Drove to his belt, and trickled in.

T'was all that I could do
To look the other way,
To put Gram's napkins to my grin,
As Charlie's horse tail wig ran threads
Of shoe black down his nose and chin.

To this day, I cannot recall
Just how the evening ended,
I only know that afterwards,
For years, the family extended
The tale of Charlie's Christmas spree:
White shirt, horse toupee, and black ink,
Caused our parents to bring warnings
Of the dire consequence of drink.

Shoeboxes in the upstairs prove
when veins were tight and hair was
that shining, gleaming, streamin,’
flaxen, waxen stuff of the 70s.
You would laugh if you could see
him in a toupee, shoulders broadened
against the end of a night shift, billy club
swinging steady by his side;
She, beautiful like Grace Kelly,
with high definition cheek bones,
her smile Rainbow Bright enough
to call the curtains down
and leave them that way forever.

But red velvet shrouds over them still;
His shoulders curve under tax forms and
knee replacements, cancer spots on his bladder and nose.
She plays with the extra turkey skin on her neck,
frowns at the grooves around her mouth.
The audience sees more than we want to.

They fade from unblemished black and white
into garish Technicolor,
Twenty-nine years
of dinner, ***** dishes left in the sink,
root canals, cat food cans,
******* stickers, laundry to fold, that milk
might be a week old.

They go on and I love them
for the death of romance,
for the things they've folded away in shoeboxes
for me to find.

A speechless hill enthused with history, stands tall.
Breathtaking,gracing the skyline of Winchester.
From the morning train, I see Lady Catherine in all her glory.
A toupee of trees on the top, discard leaf litter, as it tumbles.
Body of  plague victims interred deep in the hill.
An iron-age hill fort, a barrow minus wheels.
Teeming.
This hill’s alive with wildlife.
Steeped with history.
Stagger to the top of the beautiful beast, peep at the miz maze, a weird design.
Rest awhile, realise how beautiful it is.
Let peace be the only thing up there, to come and invade your space.
Well worth the climb, now to get down;  she's not far off perpendicular.
Gratefully wander down the man-made rickety steps.
Touch base, look up, further survey the climb you just made.
Relish those charms of St Catherine.
OLIVIA 2014

She took my breath away
just by her being near
Her long red ginger hair
Her dangerous curves, her sparkling pair
of eyes that chanced to look my way
Just as the wind snatched my toupee
(That knocked the wind out of my sail)
That left me paunchy, bald and pale.

I guess I might as well inhale.

Thee gnome had called
hymm mein flatterer, then
an ape fight for quills, to be
or naught, hidden by a hive
patch of bramble.  Do ordinance
iris search of apart theorhetic sea,
Adeiu mostly, can wearwolves
as sultry be known to chew
rawhide bones teethlesslee.  
Gather by a dared deity
of A Roman's antiquity,
all of course to femine
posterity.  An Aye for Aye,
a sythe to seize do naught
ii and cling.  For better is yet
to OyYea' and I, causes instantly
be and bee.    

cliche toupee'

I saw an ad in the local paper
A reunion for the class of 54
I decided I would attend
I’ve never been to one before

It should be grand and lots of fun
So I rented a tux and black tie
Put new batteries in me hearing aid
Bought a wig and polished me eye

I emptied a bottle of old spice
Did me toupee nice with brylcream
I soaked me teeth in steredent
Then gargled with some Listerine

I soon arrived in splendid form
Smelling my very best
It was held in a hall at an old folks home
A place called the shady rest

It’s the fortieth year and it’s very clear
Every one  is  out to impress
Even the Janes that was always plain
Wore their most elegant dress

They came round with name tags
But  didn’t  have one for me
Then suddenly I remembered
I was in the class of 53.

©Hazel

The jagged pebbles poked and dimpled my body
as I sat on the shore of Aleutian Alaska.
Each rock was dusted with patches of grass like an old man’s tangled toupee…
Not that the epic beauty of nature should be compared to
something so artificial and ugly.
The air was so cold and crisp that its fresh purity burned my peeling nose.
I am not a Native Alaskan.
I feel like an alien spectator, blemishing this astounding autonomous habitat…
But I am trying not to disturb the locals.
I haven’t seen any grizzlies yet, which maybe I should be happy about.
I wouldn’t want to be anyone’s meal-

What was that?
A puff.
An exhale.
A lingering ghost waltzed atop the water and faded.
Further down the bank I saw more dancing vapors.
Is that what it looks like when a whale comes up for air?
I have never seen how their breath shoots up the water like that.
The mist is like a ballroom dance class
swaying and skirting about the glossy, smooth surface.

Speechless…


Do you remember in elementary school how you knew everything about animals?
What was who and who was where and why?
I forgot a lot.
I forgot that whales are mammals, needing air just as I do.
Obviously, they can hold their breath longer… But I still try to hold on.
I guess those fun facts that you collected as a kid fade as you grow older.
All those little things get whisked away,
And waltz until they dissipate in the wind.
Against all reluctances,
We inhale.
We exhale.
And we forget some things along the way.

I.
I do not see the (woman) hidden in the forest.

II.
I am attempting to justify myself in your eyes.  I care very little whether I seem to anyone to exist.

--------------------------------
Let your eyes rest on me,
Among the uninformed debris,
After their illicit glancings,
And their numerous advancings,
    I do not want your eyes on me:
Eyes that land yet never cease
Their wanderings and wonderings
On the color of my under things,
   And nauseate with their caprice.

While the scattered rest on the checkered floor
Position adjacent to the banquets,
Ask for more before
The completion of their pigs in blankets;
They ask for more,
As they lick their fingers free of grease
While discussing sports and Credit Suisse…

Perhaps I’ll have one - but just one,
I don’t want to become
    obese
Like a corpse distended in an attic -

I wish it had been me they licked their fingers of;
I wish that it is them I lick my fingers of…

There are eyes on me, I assume
As I rush to the little girls' room.

The truths of comets and little girls,
Death and a young girl
Skulk on painted toes in the murk,
Where Death and a young girl lurk:

    He is with a mannequin in the back,
Hugging it tight in order to lift,
Though the limbs are limp and head is slack,
He brims with hope
    Like a panner with his sift.

I go away and leave you now, I leave you and
go away.

    I know what it is to sprawl
Prostrate and empty in a stall
With these squalid fingers,
To hear the snickers and the whispers;
    I wish that it is me they lick their fingers of,

As they powder their noses
Then emerge from the gloom smelling roses,
They go away and leave me, they leave me and
go away.

   To know what it is to say,
“I am beautiful, o mortals, like a dream in stone!”
In a most definitely denigrating tone,
Though my words and eyes betray;
Or boast that my expertise is
    Spotting a prosthesis,
To call attention to one if I see it
   on display,
    [Including the curator’s toupee];
Or to pop a squat
On his prize Jean-Michel Basquiat,
    [Though He is my personal Jesus!]
You go away and leave me now, you leave me and
go away.

    He is with a mannequin on the checkered floor,
And when he is completed
He licks his fingers and asks for more;
I would show him my portrait and say
    “Ceci n’est pas une moi,”
And agree to disagree,
I would show them my portrait and say
    “This is not a me,”
And they would laugh at my simplicity,
Then whisper hatefully and frown
Into one another’s ear
How they wish they could fit into my evening gown,
     I wish I could dwindle down
And fit into an opaque sphere.

This is not a me, the powdered nose,
The needle between painted toes,
The creak of leather, the swinging chains,
The clumps of hair swirling in drains,
There is still beauty in blackened veins -
Was there beauty in these veins?
Mascara streaks like silent shrieks,
Do your eyes still rest on me?
I would cut them from your face,
But I need lines for me to trace,
Lines to guide me where to cut.
Do not take your eyes from me,
I will not be precise if they are shut.  
Do not go away and leave me now, do not leave me and
go away.

Do I drift between stations,
Bow and curtsy, nod and smile,
Titter courteously at prevarications,
    Struggling to suppress the bile? -

    “Oh my goodness, she got so big!”  
    “Yes, she must be back at it again” -
    “But I love her book club” -
    “Oh my goodness, me too!”
    “Ha ha!”
    “Ha ha.”

There are so many with me, so many eyes,
So many hands resting on my thighs…
I cannot find a solitude,
This is not a solitude.
    
I am a beautiful use of negative space.

I count my age in eyes I detect,
The older I grow, the less I collect.
    Time leaves us out of focus…

I do not want to grow old…I will not grow old,
Unless my mind loses hold.

In this sepulchral cattle car
    We ride,
Like cattle to the abattoir,
With our patron saints beside,
    We take them all along for the ride.
This is all so familiar,
    So familiar…So familiar…
Do I want it?
Time to gargle a gin and tonic
While being shocked catatonic.
Your eyes will still be with me in my vacant sleep,
To function as my guide.
Break me into bread and partake till no sign of me
lingers,
    They have all been taken for a ride,
And even God will lick His fingers.

!да да да!

darling daughter chews dad's toupee
when she has her fill
Fido takes over

toupee or not toupee
the hairpiece is having
a bad hair day

Fido and next door's doggie
engage in snarling tug o' war
oops that's torn it

dad now looking like a monk
his bald spot badly
sunburnt

darling daughter kisses
where the hairpiece ought to be
claps and slaps: Da...Da...Da. . .DA!"

it is the only word she knows
in Russian
the world is just one big Yes!

That dress was on sale.
Oh he's just a friend.
I don't care if you're poor,
I'm with you til the end.

It's okay...no really...
I swear I'm not mad.
You're by far the best lover
that I've ever had.

I'm not into looks,
I want a sensitive lover.
Not tonight I have a headache.
I do like your mother!

We have to break-up,
but it's not you it's me.
That dent in the car?
That was there already!

I had a great time.
Hope to see you again.
Babe, you're way better
looking than your best friend.

Size doesn't matter,
it's not that big a deal.
A toupee? You're kidding!
I thought it was real!

McDonald's  is fine
I'm not into money.
Oh at first I didn't get it,
but that joke was funny!

This old thing?  What ever!
This dress ain't new.
It's just a night out with the girls!
Come on, I trust you!

These are lies that are told by bad women.
Silly "****** chicks" playing dumb games.
You would never hear those pass the lips of...
Us intelligent, sweet, classy dames!

Living where my mother be
inside america the land of infinite discovery
Utterly
shaken by words the prez is uttering
Bludgeoning the labeled "foreigners" for their said struggling..
i see your ways
Its usually quit disgusting
Grab em by the twuat you will get got and thats for sure
unpure
I hope that soon we get see some gore
i prey that you decay your toupee through the air will soar
Unsure ;
are yall the people which i should be blaming
You asked for this destruction now you ******* and complaining
god ;
How many claim to see through the facade
yet sit and watch their brothers getting buttered by the odds..

Loose glasses shimmer beneath the tune of looser morals. I hear the drinks spatter, intention belied by raucous jest. Toupee like frayed lightning, red-nosed, he leads the pack, insists on staying drunk, rather than sitting at their table. Tones, moody, hypnotic, just waltz around the outer rings of paying ears. Customerial fashion: wax political, smug murmur; who will tip this French waiter the most? The electric wig stares vulnerability into my skin-grasping ensemble. A man in front of his wife, tongue spattering over my appearance, and tonight I can’t tell if he’s hitting on me, or if this is just how they always speak.

  French waiter saunters in through the corridor, kisses them all on the cheek, takes my hand. Lips two millimeters from my veins. Heart skips, slight. I feel his breath, there on my hand, for the next hour. I would have  kissed him back, if we didn’t have the same taste in men. All the waiters here have that effect. The phone chimes, me just some answering machine. Prerecorded. I feel like people call up, testing. Questioning: why a New Zealander at a French restaurant? Parlez-vous Francais?

  Most of the time, my eyes are torn to the wide glass walls, to the harbour. To get a glimpse of the lights on the palcid waters. Watching the sunset kiss the hilltops, draping its simmering cold cloak over the buildings, as tiny people race home to their absolute importances. Fires in houses turning on, as the spotlights on Te Papa fade to cold grey. My favourite place is the kitchen. Behind the glamour, the pale blues and pale pinks, lie these white tiles, this plain room, filled with chef-de-cuisine jokes, the pastry chefs acting out Statler and Waldorf; laughing together from their arches.

  Back at my desk, the night begins to diffuse in, a stalking black cat, no lack of prey. All that can be seen within the darkness are the crisp square windows of this conscious, some lone stranger walking against the water. Left to ponder his relentless thoughts. In another world, a customer offers his opinion; his companion purses her lips. Extended smile, occasionally, to relinquish some silent apology. I smile back in turn. Vicious cycle. Of course, she knows how I understand. Frequent reprimand: talking too much to customers. This relaxed manner of hospitality is lost to the French. How easy it is, to spot a New Zealander in this crowd. The profuse, oblate, continuous laugh. Goes up to the bar, grabs their drink with their own hands. Never let a chair be pulled from underneath you, never let a napkin fall into your lap. I can feel the radiant annoyance, the wait staff just trying to do their job.

  I absolutely adore it.

Have you ever felt so distant
You just couldn't connect
Lethargic and emotionally inept
In Financial and moral debt

So to me to welcome death
Would be like I over slept
Theyre called nightmares when asleep but awake it's called regrets

So it's hard not to be depressed
stressed wonderin if my birth today
Made a difference or am I just a spec of dust under trumps toupee

left with nothing deep to say
No courage found to encourage me
to the world im just a villager a 3rd
Worlder, cuz life Honduras'd me

humbled me, it's humbling,
but still I fail to be artistic
Being a human full of temptation
Still erroneously narcissistic

Convoluting what's simplistic
And wanting, to want, so filled
Of ****, As the void shifts to over flow the emptiness til unfulfilled

Am I, a contradiction, like I con with diction, as my description
Paints poetic, how pathetic, like **** smelling cologne my depiction

Will still smell like a pool of stool
Can't justify bein my flaws, victim,
When really the fault of addiction
Is self inflicted a decision

Welcoming, compulsory prison
But I rather insult your intelligence
By making *** ups sound elegant
But the truth is there less Eloquent

So every room I enter the elephant
Is an element like it's on salary
That I feed with **** talk like I lead
As the Head of the peanut gallery

Who feeds religiously, hourly
Like bush wit twin towers I grieve it
In pain by its tragedy, but in secret
I Caused but sadly they believe it

When I lie to myself and others and do it Much, I forget what's true
And hoping you'll be less like me
... Is why I confess this to you ....

your slightest movement signified everything you wouldn't say
and the daunting days piled up as you hoarded them all away
we toppled over and crumbled in a drizzly march with a grizzly, gloomy may
june is a troubadour, a roomy humidor for a wealthy fatcat's ratty toupee
wilful ways flutter and stutter in a bluish daze, a risqué soirée
a field day for the crazed, healthy fiancés of disarray and decay

that's it
the this of now is where
I am gonna hang my cap hat my
toupee

Then there was when
that day I had long hair
and a goatee
always wet

vigorous , in a way
no doubts no second thoughts
my way or
nothing at all

had two ***** then
now I have three
they sag down lower then
my knees

I dont care anymore
wrinkles around every curve my biceps
turned into droopy triceps
my lower eyelids
into nose bags
my ears into forests
my chin into three of em

that is the way
I live work  hard
party when not working and
it took a toll
I just wish the mirror had a mute button
It has started laughing at me

On the riverbanks I toasted the moon
between smooth pebbles and weeds
the silent silver bells tolling out
in tandem with your cries. Daddy
don’t you want more, more, more—
         Promethazine Queen and ****** King
your beloved subjects, beatnik
so low compared to New Critics
the antithesis to the highs neither
He, She, nor I have reached yet!
Religious visions in the soup kitchen!
          Finding God in the backs of cars
while racing to the back doors
of the hospital her cream colored wings,
found new heights when you OD’d
the backseat confessional as we raced
along toll roads, laughing, out the window towards sea
God you cried out, won’t you dance with me?
Hell right at your feet, yeah sure, I heard
and then out we rolled, down the hills,
into the fishy sewers, their haven
and I wondered is heaven fish chomping
at the bit, and at our toes?
            I’ll never know, but on these riverbanks
I start to. On our private shores
transferring from one bank to
another, promising, ***
that our memories are safe
locked inside metal storage lockers,
with police men wearing collars
and every single American dancing
the electric slide to get in with a four
digit pin, they want priceless for the night
for the price of a hundred year of their lives!
They beg for skin to bone loans,
millions of them, something to eat,
chicken—cowards, liars, and thieves
we run on getting drunk with the government
coerced each other, just stick in it, just
stick in, I am wet for the American
dream, and Trump’s toupee, his orange
lips salivating after me, grab me by the *****!
         Or at the very least release me, us,
the collective minds of our future gen
little boys and girls that will always
have to wonder, why? Did no one like them
and what kind of sins have their
fathers committed towards their mothers,
allegations, perpetuations, I just want
out of my own ******* skin!!!
So every night, before dying
I sleep with chocolate girls melting
into their Hershey *******
their chocolate kisses
or find guys whose vision is
both of us strapped up from the ceiling
Mary and Magdalene, save your children.

it's
time
to talk
about death now
one of my favorite
topics
the wonder of it
the finality
is there more to it
or do we become only
fodder for the crematorium
or do we fade
in the big dark box
leaving behind
whatever hair we have left
and our bones
brittle as they may become
what happens when we go there
are we reunited with family
do we sit down and have a chat
about old sunday dinners
and christmas get-togethers
and how much weight
aunt barbara put on
after she divorced that rug salesman
the one with the bad toupee
and who inherited
all that fancy china
from grandmother getz
how do we look when we're dead
- pasty and pathetic -
do we sag     do we gossip
do we bowl or play tennis
so much time
nothing but time
and not a clock to be found
and what about heaven and hell
all the time in the world now
to see what everything's about
i wonder if there's music up there
i think i'll look up my neighbor mark
the one who ran off with the brassiere model
i think that he knocked her up and they moved to florida
and then he had a stroke or something and died
but being dead might not be such a bad deal
after all
so many questions
all that time
and all we really want to know for sure is
is there life
after death
at least we'd find out
wouldn't we?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/books/review/what-is-poetry.html

an excerpt…

“From time to time I’m asked, with bewilderment or derision, if this or that poem isn’t just “prose chopped into lines.” This idea of the free verse poem as “chopped” prose comes from Ezra Pound via Marjorie Perloff, who quotes Pound in her influential essay “The Linear Fallacy,” published in 1981. The essay encourages an oddly suspicious, even paranoid reading of most free verse as phony poetry, as prose in costume. The line, in Perloff’s view, in these ersatz poems, is a “surface device,” a “gimmick.” She removes all the breaks from a C.K. Williams poem to make the case that a stanza without the intentional carriage returns is merely a paragraph.

I find this baffling — as if chopping up prose has no effect. It does have an effect, the way putting more panes in a window changes the view. The architect Christopher Alexander thought big plate glass windows were a mistake, because “they alienate us from the view”: “The smaller the windows are, and the smaller the panes are, the more intensely windows help connect us with what is on the other side. This is an important paradox.” To state the Forsterian obvious again, adding breaks to a paragraph is not always going to make an interesting poem — but most poets don’t write that way. They write in the line, in the company of the void. That changes how you write — and more profoundly, how you think, and even how you are, your mode of being. When you write in the line, there is always an awareness of the mystery, of what is left out. This is why, I suppose, poems can be so confounding. Empty space on the page, that absence of language, provides no clues. But it doesn’t communicate nothing — rather, it communicates nothing. It speaks void, it telegraphs mystery.

By “mystery” I don’t mean metaphor or disguise. Poetry doesn’t, or shouldn’t, achieve mystery only by hiding the known, or translating the known into other, less familiar language. The mystery is unknowing, the unknown — as in Jennifer Huang’s “Departure”: “The things I don’t know have stayed/In this home.” The mystery is the missing mountain in Shane McCrae’s “The Butterflies the Mountain and the Lake”:

the / Butterflies monarch butterflies huge swarms they
Migrate and as they migrate south as they
Cross Lake Superior instead of flying

South straight across they fly
South over the water then fly east
still over the water then fly south again / And now
biologists believe they turn to avoid a mountain

That disappeared millennia ago.

The missing mountain is still there. As for what is on the page, the language that changes the shape of the void, I’m of the opinion it can be almost anything. One of my favorite books that no one has heard of is “Survey Says!,” by Nathan Austin. It’s just a list of guesses ventured by contestants on “Family Feud,” arranged, most ingeniously, in alphabetical order by their second letter, so you get sequences like this: “A bra. Abraham Lincoln. A building. Scaffolding. Scalpel. A car. A card game. A cat. A cat. Ice cream. Ice cream. Ice cream. Ice cream.” We get the answers; the questions are missing. “Get a manicure. Get a toupee. Get drunk. Retirement fund. Get out of bed. Get ready! Let’s go with manuals. Get sick in there. Let’s say a pet. Let’s say shoes. Bette Davis.” The poetry seems to perform hypnosis, the found rhymes and assonance and anaphora enacting an enchantment, a bewitchery; it seems to be giving subconscious advice. Get ready! You must change your life.”

for taking my security away, for taking blanket from naked body

I resent like a balding man loses his toupee


scalding hot coffee *** just missing the lap

I fall in love and resent that the gift does not merit consent, the gift does not merit consent

you give a little, you get a little,

that statement is a lie, I will not listen anymore

my love is overwhelming, too perplexing for most to bear, and I am

ousted, laughed at, pigeon holed, left to introspection

left to meal, movie

I fall in love, I give the gift, and I continue breathing

and I get weaker, I resent, I resent

I am in control of my own soul.
It is my goal to keep it whole.
Within the hour all my power will devour.
Turn the world sour.
I need to bathe & shower with flowers.
I strayed far away to a place that portrayed to betray today.
I don't pray to any gods.
Animals are who I obey.
Telepathically their wishes are conveyed.
Furry friends are holy vessels.
I like to hug, kiss, pet, & nestle.
Everyday to anyone's dismay.
My love & affection for animals is always on display.
Without delay.
Earth is where they should stay.
To be a mother & a father not sent to slaughter.
Not breeded.
Just food & water.
Until I am old & grey.
I got caught about forgetting a lot.
Yesterday I had nothing to say.
An old foaggie went too a buffet.
He was not okay his toupee fell on his tray.
He was not happy or gay.
Everyone said "hey"

I entered school at Blaisdon Hall,
when everybody seemed so tall:
but when I finished being taught,
all my chums in height were short.

The invention of a former cook,
fed the progress of my build and look,
along with spuds - best of Stud Farm crop,
and regular pudding known as "FLOP"

Wilfred Higginbotham was his name:
t'was from Manchester that he came.
Before him the chef was Mr. Higgins:
toupee-topped, nicknamed “Wiggins.”

Very wobbly on a pushbike:
Wilfred was (as they say today) "like"
sort of fat.  Yet, tha' knows
very light upon his toes.

If in the mood and no kerfuffle,
he'd do a lively soft shoe shuffle.
Opera trained - Wilfred was a singer:
for a famous Welsh tenor a dead ringer...

By the serving hatch, his apron gravy stained,
melodious, cheerful, unrestrained
he'd make the pots and kettles ring
as from the repertoire he'd gaily sing..

....selections de La Traviatta, La Boheme,
in his opinion "la crème de la crème"
and other classic arias with aplomb
in the style of Harry Secombe.

Now Wilfred’s "FLOP" a sort of madeira cake:
from the kitchen hatch the server would take
a warmish, deep presenting tray,
where puffed up inviting, there it lay.

Father "Bulldog" Wilson then would cut a slice,
take a bite - declare it “Nice!”
Alas! his knife released the air,
that wily Wilf had mixed in there.

Like a balloon pricked by a pin,
silently within the cooling tin
the cake collapsed. What a ****!
Wilf (t'was said) had used a stirrup pump.

Wilfred - as a baker- didn't cut the mustard,
but he was a dab hand when it came to custard!
A portion of his added magic yellow liquor
made the deflated "Flop!" taste thicker.

What was served up, had a fleeting taste
and was scoffed down in a fitful haste,
thus pleased I am to here relate,
not a trace of "FLOP!" was left upon the plate.

Whatever came of Wilf, I'll never know:
back up North, to ailing mum he had to go.
But still his pudding can invoke
such sensual sentiments all beyond a joke.

Early on in life Marcel Proust's nibbled madelaine,
a lifetime later, when dipped in tea,
and tasted once again, had power to regain
lost time and illuminate his memory.

So it is with me and as I thought
of cher Marcel, an evocative poem was wrought:
"FLOP"!" inspires the 1950s when I recall,
those schoolboy meals in Blaisdon Hall.

TOBIAS