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Keith J Collard Aug 2012
I tremble from its wake,
but a petty raft,
looking upward,
as the living trireme,
rows into  Earth's blue lake.
Chris Saitta Oct 2022
A knife cuts clean the jugular of Greece,
Sun-shattered Autumn spurts in breezes,
Her face falls like crumpled sails of the trireme
~This is the sound of sinking clouds, mammatus~
The slow tottering head sinks into itself,
The arm of once-command lies lengthwise
Next to the sea, as waves erase all her form,
And the drear and maddened moon in its cage of stars.
La Funkbadger Dec 2014
There was an old crab from the Andes
Who had claws in the place of the handies
She wasted her time
Chasing the sublime
Now she snips chickens in Nandy's


There was an old knight whose great sword
He'd swing so not to get bored
He ran through the Prince
But started to wince
When he saw the royal horribly gored


There was a dear ledger from Ryde
Who had Gods love at his side
He wrote bibles for pence
On an old picket fence
That loveable ledger from Ryde


There was an old fellow from Greece
Who always wore a golden fleece
He rode his horse far
Faster than any car
Because of the healing properties of the fleece


There was a camera man from Spain
Who always used to film in the rain
The water was wet
He'd always forget
Electrocutions caused him great pain


There was an old man whose bonnet
Was woven with pages of sonnet
For he was a poet
And didn't he know it
Pretentious old man with his bonnet


There was a young man whose cuticles
Were ornately fashioned in cubicles
He was so vain
To be pretty again
He funded big time pharmaceuticals


There was an old frigate from mars
Whose cannons sounded like guitars
This frightened the queen
Who vented her spleen
And shot the space frigate from cars


A cat and a mouse and a dog
Lived in a big giant frog
They always ate brie
For breakfast and tea
Now they all wear one sandal one clog


There was an old pear from Derry
Who was scarcely if ever so merry
He fell from a tree
Landing in a lee
Till farmer Giles turned him into perry


There was a young lady whose toliet
Was broken so plumber would oil it
The new seat would come
To comfort her ***
Until another breakage would spoil it!


There was an old dog with a dream
To build her own mighty trireme
She'd sail the sea
And be back home for tea
If only she had opposeable thumbs


There was an old butcher whose feet
Would every third sunday tread meat
He rolled in the blood
That came in a flood
From cuts in the **** so discrete


There was a young boy with three heads
Who slept in three seperate beds
Whenever he dreamt
He lost what it meant
(The downside of having three heads)


There was an old eagle who'd sing
About losing her old violin
She gave up the search
To perch in a birch
And starved herself horribly thin


There was an old priest by a tomb
Who curled up inside a stone womb
For so close to death
He cursed every breath
And waited the slow march of doom
Yenson Jan 2020
When you put pigs in charge of Democracy
you get pigswill and muck!!
playing ***** chess
and eating bacon butties
unaware of the irony
enough said!!.....

Within the dialogues of Plato, the founding father of Greek Philosophy – Socrates – is portrayed as hugely pessimistic about the whole business of democracy. In his Book Six of The Republic, Plato describes Socrates falling into conversation with a character called Adeimantus and trying to get him to see the flaws of democracy by comparing a society to a ship. If you were heading out on a journey by sea, asks Socrates, who would you ideally want deciding who was in charge of the vessel? Just anyone or people educated in the rules and demands of seafaring? The latter of course, says Adeimantus, so why then, responds Socrates, do we keep thinking that any old person should be fit to judge who should be a ruler of a country?

Socrates’s point is that voting in an election is a skill, not a random intuition. And like any skill, it needs to be taught systematically to people. Letting the citizenry vote without an education is as irresponsible as putting them in charge of a trireme sailing to Samos in a storm. Socrates was to have first hand, catastrophic experience of the foolishness of voters.

In 399 BC, the philosopher was put on trial on ******* up charges of corrupting the youth of Athens. A jury of 500 Athenians was invited to weigh up the case and decided by a narrow margin that the philosopher was guilty. He was put to death by hemlock in a process which is, for thinking people, every bit as tragic as Jesus’s condemnation has been for Christians.

Crucially, Socrates was not elitist in the normal sense. He didn’t believe that a narrow few should only ever vote. He did, however, insist that only those who had thought about issues rationally and deeply should be let near a vote. We have forgotten this distinction between an intellectual democracy and a democracy by birthright. We have given the vote to all without connecting it to that of wisdom. And Socrates knew exactly where that would lead: to a system the Greeks feared above all, demagoguery.
painful experience of demagogues,  forgotten all about Socrates’s salient warnings against democracy. We have preferred to think of democracy as an unambiguous good – rather than a process that is only ever as effective as the education system that surrounds it. As a result, we have elected many crooks and clowns, wasters and dumb anarchists, and very few trained, educated, erudite and wise leaders
Alternately titled: arm ugh gut tin 

Aye dread getting *******
   and getting washed 
   even without spectacles
   that haint no mo' six-pack ab
which nearly rock-ribbed
   mid equatorial zone shapeshifted 
   into corpuscular blubbery 
   ancillary physiognomy
   where aye wanna bab 
bull posttraumatic stressed out
   middle age battle of the bulge.

Season sponged pants squarely 
   and tightly across the equatorial adipose tissue
   requiring mister crab
to clamp down with pincers
   viz primitive liposuction 
   whence rustling scupper
   will efface this trireme 
   where three-ply
   tread fully and tirelessly dab
bull to ameliorate
   rolls of extra flesh alien 
   to what stacked
   as an athletic sculpted body.

   Now no prolong inhalation
   get with steely mettle hie trite to iron out the flab
thus this part
   and parcel of senescence, 
   yet auxiliary buttressed dermis 
   effect forming gorged girth
   giving "love handles" grab
reigniting reign of prepubescent anorexia nervosa, 
   bootstrapped now wen frankly
   zaps distorted self-image. 

   Evoked holocaust repugnant
   rolls of fat insta jab
stubborn thoughts of self-loathing
   entice me to become a lab
bore a tory guinea pig to restore 
   prime of life when five foot ten
   alignment could nab
first place in a slick couture magazine 
   from the neck down
   taut torso bearing 
   fashion model and
   teen idol where tab.

To stand stock still until Shutterfly
   would SnapChat 
   rippled tummy, could
   fill my hungry wallet with inxs of cash
now, aye haint so gorge ***,
 WhatsApp with  
   a faux pregnant protuberance,
   though thankfully 
   derriere still rather dash
ing, which palm pilot sized buttocks
   doth newt offset. 

   Lost battle of the bulge,
   where diet tribes furloughed in a flash
abandoning their respective stations, 
   gnome hatter sinusoidal
   parabolic frontispiece finds me to gnash
my toothless mouth for lack of means 
   to stave of the depredations 
   of slump pin proletariat
   allowing me a hash.

Tag with hefty weight, acquiescing 
   this Pillsbury doughboy blivet 
   to subject himself to the sharp
   stings of a cool whip lash
bearing the snap against raw skin as due process 
   and supplication for atlas shrug
ging his shoulders
   at the fountainhead naming me mash
shew Scott in regard to oblate inflation. 

   Insulation fiberglass around midsection, and
   how ma late mum 
   (an avid fan of doctor Carleton Fredericks,
   who preceded Mehmet Oz), would quash
the love she showered on this sole heir - 
   resorting to exhaustive palliatives -
   even ear rash
shun null gambits,
   and as a last-ditch effort 
   putting this offspring  
   on par with an albatross -
   vamoose get out with the trash!
Ander Stone Sep 24
there is a small fire,
a flickering light,
akin to a firefly lost
in the cold mists of night,
shining bright where
my joy should be.

there is a deep well,
a profound darkness,
akin to a cavern flooded
with frigid dark waves
echoing eternally
to the sound of loneliness.

there is a lackluster wreckage,
a broken trireme,
akin to a kingly one
that sailed out of Ithaca,
bleeding memories through
a gashing wound.

there is a rhyme,
a shattered syllable,
akin to a muffled shout
that reverberated throughout
those splintered blinks
of a forlorn childhood...
My poetic side COSMOFUNNEL
wordsmith thanks tumblr in his noggin
ofttimes triggering babbling brook
to swell after deluge
becoming stream of consciousness runnel
carving, gouging, and liquidating topography
qua zee mow toe natural formed tunnel.

Digitally remastered and revised
since original version rejected, thus
writer released,  purposely leaked,
and flooded mass media
courtesy the following
self branded watershed vaunted unabridged
sprawling questionable and deplorable
creation loosed upon unassuming readers.

Analogously linkedin with
once upon a time
one doodling dandy Yankee slender man,
whose yang upended, overshadowed,
and eclipsed mine yin,
nevertheless, now yours truly self anointed
as an elder statesman - ha
gifted with unwanted
inxs of abdominal adipose tissue
(attributed to agent provocateur of aging,

which affects my metabolism
and/or courtesy
unwanted side effect reaction
from one or more
of the eight medications
nurse practitioner
at Penn Psychiatric Center
Phoenixville, Pennsylvania location
Elizabeth Clark prescribes),
which gained weight foments tussle

a fight to the death, I can never win
and alternately titled: arm ugh gut tin
yours truly loathes to mensch shin
one alien looking pear shaped
humanoid with redskin
liposuction advised courtesy Doctor Quinn
(a fictional character and magician,
I took poetic license
created above to help eradicate body dysmorphia),
she waved her wand and ****
transformed me into a puffin.

Aye dread getting undressed
and/or getting washed
even without spectacles
thar haint no mo' six pack ab,
which nearly rock ribbed
mid equatorial zone shape shifted
into corpuscular blubbery
ancillary physiognomy
where aye wanna bab
bull posttraumatic stressed out

middle age battle of the bulge
in summer re: a waisted effort
squarely (er rather roundly) testing
the elasticity of extra large sweatpants,
when straining to hide expanding girth
definitely producing undesirable effect,
(especially when floating in briny deep,
I squarely, honestly and closely resemble
the Chinese brother
who swallowed the sea  

strongly urging, necessitating,
and exhorting mister crab
to clamp down with pincers,
viz primitive liposuction,
whence rustling scupper
will efface this fleshed out
human bloviated ruggedly handsome
man of the webbed wide world
a bit heavy around the equator
over self indulgent fleshpot

unable, uneager, unready,
and unwilling to maneuver
his portly ill proportioned body
inducing unprovoked stares,
and tears for fears
eyes tracking billowing supersize shirt
resembling trireme sails being trimmed,
where fleshly freighted sloop
displaces entire watery expanse
stranding, stinging and starving an a ray

of underwater species,
now prolonging requisite inhalation;
I seek desperate sticktoitiveness
guidance courtesy Younan Nowzaradan
with steely mettle
hie trite to iron out flab
thus tis part and parcel of senescence,
yet auxiliary buttressed dermis
effect forming gorged girth
giving "love handles" grab

reigniting reign of terror
viz prepubescent anorexia nervosa,
boot strapped now - wen
remembrance of things past frankly
zapped distorted self-image
evoked holocaust images repugnant;
buttery rolls of fat insta jab
stubborn thoughts of self-loathing
entice me to become a lab
bore a tory guinea pig/
scapegoat role to restore

prime of life build when five foot ten
obviously me no Lemuel Gulliver
alignment could now perchance nab
first place in a slick couture magazine
from the neck down,
cuz face mottled with
nine inch nails clawing skin
wrought unsightly scab
taut torso bearing
fashion model and
senior citizen idol, where
every place I go receiving
venue offers free tab.

To stand stock still until shutterfly
would SnapChat
rippled tummy, could
fill my hungry wallet with inxs of cash
now, aye haint so gorge ***,
WhatsApp with
faux pregnant protuberance,
though thankfully
derriere still rather dash
shing, which palmolive pilot sized buttocks

doth newt offset sorry to report
lost battle of the bulge,
where diet tribes furloughed in a flash
abandoning their respective stations,
gnome hatter sinusoidal
parabolic frontispiece finds me to gnash
my toothless mouth for lack of means
to stave of the depredations
of slump pin proletariat
allowing me a hash

sheesh priceline tag
with hefty weight, acquiescing
this Pillsbury doughboy blivet
to subject himself to the sharp
stings of a cool whip lash
bearing the snap against
raw skin as due process
and supplication for atlas shrug
gin his broad shoulders
at the fountainhead naming me mash
shew Scott in regard to oblate inflation
insulation fiberglass around midsection, and

how ma late mum
(an avid fan of doctor Carleton Fredericks,
who preceded Mehmet Oz), would quash
the love she showered on this sole heir -
resorting to exhaustive palliatives -
even ear rash
shun null gambits,
and as last ditch effort
putting this offspring
on par with an albatross -
vamoose get out with the trash
unless everything (pertaining to
indelible stubborn blubber
comes out at the whoosh she wash
Diet of worms.

— The End —