"witticism" poems
When I was younger,
I was a shaman
chanting melodies
that I hoped
would change the world.
Perhaps, they did
for my people;
the schizophrenic
gypsy stoners earth mother
worshiping airy words
burning the creative
liquid juices squirting
over our brains
like a drop of LSD on a sugar cube.
But now,
I can feel the age
in my emotions.
Time drags me
through, smoldering campfire
ashes smoking to the heavens...
where the stars
look like they're rotting away
inside the mouth of space.
Even shadows are afraid
to hide in these dark corners.
These places in space
are so cool
chilly
hip.
Some kind of
sarcastic
one-liner
witticism
of ironic truth
temperature.
And I wish
to go back there.
But I must
return back
to earth to learn
what I cannot escape.
Jun 3, 2012
Jun 3, 2012 at 11:00 PM UTC
Words run down rutty cheeks and phrases pour out of ears and snotty clauses pool on a top lip. A sleeping lizard with tough skin fills the mouth with a little bit of space for the foot propped up against the molars in the back. Some magnificent ******** can part their jaws to let cascades of magnificent sense pass from them. This unfortunate individual, however, cannot stream any quips out of the correct orifice. If some promising witticism manages to squeeze past the big fat iguana under that palate then the bitter thing would flick at the uvula with its tail and the witty remark would be gagged out in the most broken form it could possibly take. The lie it cultivates is that everything inside is at least a little embarrassing. Desperately romanticising about growing a soft, lizard-less mouth must somehow cure the hard working mute someday. Because what the hell else is there to do when one needs to be undaunted and well-spoken?
Jul 23, 2014
Jul 23, 2014 at 11:27 AM UTC
Like a star, you
are completely unstable.
This is certainly true,
it is no fable.
A constant battle, between
your constant auto-criticism,
crushing your self-esteem...
Lashing out with witticism.
And your thoughts coming together
beautiful yet destructive,
yet it's only when it's them you aim to tether
do they tend to get disruptive.
Although I'm under no illusion
and I realise that your beauty can blind,
you create energy like nuclear fusion
and boggle my mind.
Some will be blinded by your brilliance,
others will never fathom your inner struggles.
You will have to find intrinsic stimulants,
and amaze those who watch you juggle
Nov 12, 2015
Nov 12, 2015 at 2:34 PM UTC
My mother dearly wanted
to be Dorothy Parker.
She yearned for a taste of the power that comes
from a truly witty response.
She craved to deliver
A statement so powerful
and sardonic that it would terminate
all argument or discussion.
My proximity made me an easy target to practice on
as each of our arguments ended with a bon mot
delivered with the all the acerbic flourish of Bette Davis.
As I listened to her footsteps receding down the hallway
I had only to take one more breath
before the footsteps reversed direction
and - standing at the doorway to my room -
She would deliver another culminating witticism
turn, leave and repeat.
In the fifties and sixties an intelligent woman –
a single mother of three
with no high school diploma,
but a surfeit of imagination –
Savoured what little power she could find
even if it was a fiction, a delusion
or just a punchline sharp enough to draw blood.
Oct 12, 2017
Oct 12, 2017 at 3:28 PM UTC
I want to write
About you
Your laughter, maniacal antics, wit
Witticism, whimsy
The way you made me think deep
Through the belly rolling, stomach cramping “please stop”
But not really…so much fun laughter…sent
To ponder the silliness of my existence
The absurdity of my serious self
Your fantastical smile and that particular sadness
In your eyes just beyond reach, casting a spell of
Connectivity
Humanity
…
I want to write about
The innumerable truths you spoke
Written in lines, given to you…owned by you
Known through you
“Words and ideas can change the world”
My world…
Why not your world?
**** it.
…
I want to write about you
But
I
Can’t…it hurts too much
Robin…
It hurts too much.
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 4:47 PM UTC
In high school
my friends would ask me
"how do you not care about anything?"
and I would try to say something
a grand piece of witticism like
"100 years from now
nobody will know that I existed
let alone how I did on a ******* spanish quiz"
yeah look at me
Mr. Edgy
care free
careless rebel
but nobody knew
that my greatest anxiety
is that there will be nothing
left of me
after I die
Feb 25, 2013
Feb 25, 2013 at 11:47 PM UTC
It's not the fact that
everytime I open Hello Poetry
I have to open a new tab
on my computer screen
to a dictionary
No Sirree
It's not the fact that
I come back to read them
Six, Seven, infinity times
and always wonder
Could that be me?
They are sooo easy
(of course it's me)
It's not the fact that
He makes me think thoughts
that should have been sleeping
throughout my whole human phase
bringing up ideas that are better left
when we are prepared to retire
to the stars, I think he's part Mage
It's not his witticism, completely admired
It's not his heroism, completely tried
It's not his ability to not be able to deflect
It's his ability to be able to unashamedly connect
But no one will ever hate you for that... if there is anyone here who can't understand the same, don't hate the player, hate the game
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 4:01 AM UTC
It would be inaccurate, indeed downright unfair,
To label her as a convenience,
Certainly no matter of being any port in a storm;
She fell into that category of handsome women,
Tending more to the Rubenesque than the runway,
And those occasions where an evening with the gang
Fragmented into a somewhat unmatched set
Were more in line with settling into a familiar harbor,
Bereft of the intoxicating hazards of shoals and sand bars, perhaps,
But comfortable with a certain steadfastness about it,
A pleasant haven from the riptides, undertows,
And various entanglements of the open water.
It was an aneurysm that took her, the type of thing
We’d associated with grandparents, aged aunts,
Corpulent colleagues of our fathers.
What’s more, it turned she was staunchly and stubbornly Lutheran,
Regular to the point of obsession in her attendance at services
(We’d no way of knowing such a thing, of course,
The notion of staying overnight at her place
To rise from last night’s sheets at mid-morning
And share a table for omelettes and awkward chit-chat
Being both curious and curiosity)
So we arrayed ourselves in stiff collars,
Accompanied by ties we’d hoped to be suitable,
As the whole affair had us a bit off balance,
And we were only able to restore our equilibrium at the end,
Just in time to attempt to bounce pebbles onto her coffin lid
In what he hoped was some witticism in Morse code.
Jan 19, 2017
Jan 19, 2017 at 1:53 PM UTC
Your words
are echoed utopia
dystopically toned
singed with witticism
kindling from within the pure rhythm of the third EyE.
I know, I know....
these are how most of our
conversations play out.
But,
I just cannot help myself.
I am willing to say
I think your words
I grok the most.
May you one day meditate
with Azurite....
and breathe the energies
of the written word
into my humble brain......
Apr 10, 2012
Apr 10, 2012 at 11:39 PM UTC
Frozen in place I stood,
A deer caught in a hunter’s crosshair.
I never thought you would,
But you did; you killed me, right there.
I am angry at myself, most of all;
For staying when I should have left,
For not dodging the bullet and taking the fall.
Twice now, I found myself broken;
Carelessly adrift in life,
Like a raft on the ocean.
Too much pain this chest,
These monsters in my head
Feel like an obstacle I cannot best.
I don’t just want to be loved;
I want us all to love and understand one another.
‘It’s not possible, we’re too different,’
Those who wish to rebuttal will answer.
No, that is the distant path you chose,
I choose to keep my humanity close.
And yet, I cannot stop the terrifying flashbacks.
You made me feel like a train veering off its tracks.
Like a bridge that leads to a precipice,
Nothing but a cold, dark abyss.
Meet the millennials -
The most criticised generation,
Suffering from emotional stagnation,
Raised on a steady diet of instant gratification.
‘What do you want, then?’
I want us to feel the soil with our bare feet.
To associate freely with others we meet,
Not bow down to the pretension of the elite.
To embrace our soul,
Not shun it and drive it into a locked room;
To retrace our role,
Not simply run our life’s course to its doom.
We are being led astray,
Our hopes and dreams hidden away.
We have no room for thought, little to say,
For few want to go out of their way.
No criticism, no originality -
No witticism, no vitality.
We are criticised for criticising,
And we are ostracised when we act defying.
We are the paralysed;
Our fears leave us immobilised,
Anxiety and depression,
Killing variety of expression.
We languish in prisons
That we build for ourselves in our own head;
We have nightmarish visions,
Like a guild of the living dead.
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 6:57 AM UTC
It saddens me to know that I will never get to hear
All of your lighthearted, yet strange witticism
That you have gained in your extended travels and restless years
The abundance of stories your mind boasts still amazes me
Even if heard more than once I still enjoy them, greatly
It's an opportunity to relive and experience a piece of a life of a well made man
Oct 15, 2015
Oct 15, 2015 at 2:05 PM UTC
This ****** organism
Flowing with Lyricism
Endowed with Witticism
Maybe lacking in rhythm...
But not in favouritism
Look under the skin
Why the schism
What is the division
Needless criticism
Wait... did I just become the villain?
Apr 2, 2020
Apr 2, 2020 at 8:05 AM UTC
Novelties
by Thomas Campion
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their ****** for exotic positions.
***
Original Latin text:
IN LIBRARIOS
by Thomas Campion
Impressionum plurium librum laudat
Librarius; scortum nec non minus leno.
Keywords/Tags: Campion, Latin, translation, epigram, novels, novelties, booksellers, publishers, authors, pimps, ****** prostitutes, prostitution, exotic, positions, quote, quotation, saying, witticism, bon mot
Mar 17, 2020
Mar 17, 2020 at 10:12 PM UTC
Words out on paper
More like a laptop
I am streaming
Flowing
Gleaming
Glowing
Exploding with words that don’t want to stop
So I drop the ones I find
Blowing minds with my lyrical grind
My quick-witted witticism
Soaring above criticism
Filling up the catechism of religions with rainbows from my mind’s prism
Breaking free of this prison
Short circuit this system
The earth is shaking, cataclysm
There’s no mistaking, no masochism
Just linguistic synergism
You had better listen
To what you might be missing
The words to free your mind
These thoughts seem so divine
Elegant yet unrefined
Nature in its purest form
Raging, summer thunderstorm
Engaging, like a wormhole
Calm becoming turmoil
Live forever, eternal
My words dock on your terminal
They enter, suddenly internal
Whether heavenly or infernal
So much to see in a single kernel
So open up your eyes, dispel these lies
Capsize your ship and rise with the tide to the moon
Dispel this gloom and leave this tomb of a room
See reality in full majesty
Life is a mystery, not a tragedy
It is sad to be asleep
Don’t keep on snoozing
You are losing precious minutes
You should be choosing to get in it
So jump into the river of time
Swim and shiver in the sublime
You can break with rhyme and reason
Being awake is something to believe in
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 12:38 PM UTC
The Art of Criticism
The art of criticism
Should consist
Of accurate, rich language-ism;
Gentleness and witticism,
Care and love implicit
In a simple, clear expression.
Love of th’art it’s writing ‘bout,
Love, respect inside and out
For author, auth’ress, sculptor, sculptress,
Painter, paint-ress, instrumentalist and –ess.
Poet, poetess whose full respect he/she/they merit.
When I read clichés inherent
Such as, “Awesome” “Great” and “Wonderful”,
Thoughtless, glib and under-worked;
When I read “Like”, “Thumbs up, “Thumbs down
I frown.
This plea from Ms. Poetic Me,
Sincere, considered, justified
Is plain ol’ objectivity,
Objecting to a lazy critic.
A good critique
Is not a trick
Played out in adjectives and verbs.
A worthy critic is superb,
Does not disturb
Because he values art and artist.
The Art of Criticism 6.30.2016
Definitely Didactic;
Arlene Corwin
Jun 30, 2016
Jun 30, 2016 at 11:38 AM UTC
Look at that there!
Wow! a witticism!
Ouch... it bites!
© 2019 Jim Davis
May 7, 2019
May 7, 2019 at 1:49 PM UTC