/I dreamed that wrinkled fingers pointed me backward down the road to teach me about faith./

there’s this plastic imitation leather
peeling off of my steering wheel
and it caught the edge of my chin tonight:
like a fingernail if I closed my eyes.

I re-find that people are flawed,
that I value flaws in a certain lilt or lighting—
I fall deeply in love with confidence like that
but fail to pull it to my own cheeks.

we’re microwave dinners, have you noticed that?
showcasing our dreams in caricatures we later regret.
we’re rotating in heat—pressurizing for perfection,
warming our raw insides to blend with what we see.

(it felt like a fingernail if I closed my eyes.)

spines are expressive—they make us easier to read.
no spine is more inclined to bring eyes the rising sun than yours.
our spines are expressive—they make us easier to write.

Does anyone here know of a canine murderer?
As I urgently need someone to bash the living **** out of
My fat ugly neighbour's disgusting Yorkshire terrier.
Oh Holy God, How I want the little ******* mutt to suffer.
I’d love to see it choking and coughing its head off;
Yorkshire terriers are the most repulsive things since sliced bread,
Yappy, repellent smelly little ***** of malevolent fur.
They only appeal when wriggling feebly at a rope’s end.
Woof! Woof! Woof! Gurgle! Gurgle!
Silence.

They’re really rockin’ in Bradford,
Off the Pennine Way.
Deep in the heart of Yorkshire
And round the Robin Hood’s Bay.
All over South Ossett
And down to New Farnley.
Roast beef and Yorkie Puddings,
God’s Own County, Yay!

Yull see ‘em rambling at Ilkley,
Right to the county line,
Sheffield steel and Wednesday –
A football team so fine.
Better still, Leeds United,
Greatest club of all time.

Yorkshire, Kings of Cricket,
Oh what a boon!
Get down that wicket,
We’ll be champs by June.
Down a ginnel or snicket,
See our Olympic Champs.
Coal Miner Picket,
Relight those lamps.

Racing pigeons and ferrets,
Stereotypes tha knows.
Over t’top in Lancashire,
Them there’s our foes.
We’re the greatest county,
Our pride really glows.
We know you all hate us,
It keeps us on our toes.

So we’ll be rockin’ in Yorkshire,
What more can I say?
Us Tykes 're as barmy as Barnsley,
So I’ll be on my way.

Paul Butters

(With due thanks to Chuck Berry and also The Beach Boys)

Well I don't know if you saw me and passed on Coffee Meets Bagel a few days ago or not, but you look pretty adorable and sound interesting too, so I wanted to say hi either way! 4 weeks in Ireland sounds pretty great too - was that for work, or some other opportunity?

If you had to pick between only skiing or snowboarding for the rest of your life, which would you choose?

Hey! I do web work too...what do you do for the sports coverage website? No workaholism here haha, but I do work hard.

Where do you like to get ****** up on a Friday night?

Love the uggs on the one male stripper. Gotta get myself a pair.

Aww, you and your pup look like super good cuddle buddies. It's really hard to pick something to watch on Netflix...or Amazon Prime in my case. Watching anything good now?

What is there to get butthurt about on your profile really? Except for short guys, maybe. Oh, and gamers. I play games sometimes, but not excessively. What's the cooper tires thing you did?

6 pounds is tiny! What kind of dog is he, a yorkie or something?

Hey, hope you're having a good weekend. Kinda feels like a golf day today based on the way this last week has felt ha. Do you play a lot?

Hey, how are you liking the city and school so far? I went to an engineering school not too far away, you might have heard of it - ...

Sometimes it's hard to sum up our IT jobs in a few words, but nice job ha. A constant challenge and learning something new every day is what I like about mine!

Happily Never After (the Second Curse of the ***** Toad)
by Michael R. Burch

He did not think of love of Her at all
frog-plangent nights, as moons engoldened roads
through crumbling stonewalled provinces, where toads
(nee princes) ruled in chinks and grew so small
at last to be invisible. He smiled
(the fables erred so curiously), and thought
bemusedly of being reconciled
to human flesh, because his heart was not
incapable of love, but, being cursed
a second time, could only love a toad’s . . .
and listened as inflated frogs rehearsed
cheekbulging tales of anguish from green moats . . .
and thought of her soft croak, her skin fine-warted,
his anemic flesh, and how true love was thwarted.

Originally published by Romantics Quarterly. Keywords/Tags: frog, *****, toad, prince, princess, curse, kiss, fable, true, love, magic, spell, croak, kingdom



Happily Never After
by Michael R. Burch

Happily never after, we lived unmerrily
(write it!—like disaster) in Our Kingdom by the See
as the man from Porlock’s laughter drowned out love’s threnody.

We ditched the red wheelbarrow in slovenly Tennessee
and made a picturebook of poems, a postcard for Tse-Tse,
a list of resolutions we knew we couldn’t keep,
and asylum decorations for the King in his dark sleep.

We made it new so often strange newness, wearing old,
peeled off, and something rotten gleamed dull yellow, not like gold:—
like carelessness, or cowardice, and redolent of ***.
We stumbled off, our awkwardness—new Keystone comedy.

Huge cloudy symbols blocked the sun; onlookers strained to see.
We said We were the only One. Our gaseous Melody
had made us Joshuas, and so—the Bible, new-rewrit,
with god removed, replaced by Show and Glyphics and Sanskrit,
seemed marvelous to Us, although King Ezra said, “It’s S—t.”

We spent unhappy hours in Our Kingdom of the Pea,
drunk on such Awesome Power only Emperors can See.
We were Imagists and Vorticists, Projectivists, a Dunce,
Anarchists and Antarcticists and anti-Christs, and once
We’d made the world Our oyster and stowed away the pearl
of Our too-, too-polished wisdom, unanchored of the world,
We sailed away to Lilliput, to Our Kingdom by the See
and piped the rats to join Us, to live unmerrily
hereever and hereafter, in Our Kingdom of the Pea,
in the miniature ship Disaster in a jar in Tennessee.


More Nonsense Verse by Michael R. Burch


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


Although I prefer
onions
to bunions,
begging your pardon sir,
I still primarily defer
to legal ******.
—Michael R. Burch


Anti-Vegan Manifesto
by Michael R. Burch

Let us
avoid lettuce,
sincerely,
and also celery!


Ding **** ...
by Michael R. Burch

for Fliss

An impertinent bit of sunlight
defeated a goddess, NIGHT.
"Hooray!," cried the clover,
"Her reign is over!
But she certainly gave us a fright!"


The Flu Fly Flew
by Michael R. Burch

A fly with the flu foully flew
up my nose—thought I’d die—had to sue!
Was the small villain fined?
An abrupt judge declined
my case, since I’d “failed to achoo!”


The Humpback
by Michael R. Burch

The humpback is a gullet
equipped with snarky fins.
It has a winning smile:
and when it SMILES, it wins
as miles and miles of herring
excite its fearsome grins.
So beware, unwary whalers,
lest you drown, sans feet and shins!


Hell-Bound Hounds
by Michael R. Burch

We have five dogs and every one’s a sinner!
I swear it’s true—they’ll steal each other’s dinner!
They’ll **** before they’re married. That’s unlawful!
They’ll even ***** in public. Eek, so awful!

And when it’s time for treats (don’t gasp!), they’ll beg!
They have no pride! They’ll even **** your leg!
Our oldest Yorkie murdered dear, sweet Olive,
our helpless hamster! None will go to college

or work to pay their room and board, or vets!
When the Devil says, “*** here!” they all yip, “Let’s!”
And yet they’re sweet and loyal, so I doubt
the Lord will dump them in hell’s dark redoubt...

which means there’s hope for you, perhaps for me.
But as for cats? I say, “Best wait and see.”


Menu Venue
by Michael R. Burch

At the passing of the shark
the dolphins cried Hark!;
cute cuttlefish sighed, Gee
there will be a serener sea
to its utmost periphery!;
the dogfish barked,
so joyously!;
pink porpoises piped Whee!
excitedly,
delightedly.
But ...
Will there be as much glee
when there’s no you and me?


Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’
by Michael R. Burch

Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’
the bees rise
in a dizzy circle of two.
Oh, when I’m with you,
I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too.

Reading the paper kicking back with a few big boobie  maiden's
He Man sit's and reflects  after flexing his muscles for the maidens to giggle over mmm   He Man loves the maidens.

Well after He Man's moment of deep thought he flushed the toilet
and beat the evil toilet demon back down the drain.

looking on the net and not just at **** He Man saw  that evil Skeletor
had yet again  erased yet another acount the master of the universe was mad so after  wrasslin with the servant girl mmmm   He man loves the servant girl.

He man called up Skeletor  cause it wasa long ride over there and
and gas prices were a *****.
One  bar!  ******* verizon dam cellphone overpriced ****.

He Man smashed  the cellphone against the castle wall and cut that useless ****** head off  cant hear me now huh ******?

Man at arms     build me better phone now!
mmmm  He Man like a man in uniform.

After man at arms   fought off He Man mmmm  thats okay
he'll have to sleep sometime.

Man at arms built he man better phone with string and tin cup hello?


Skeletor Yorkie Speaking **** seems to be the problem.
Mmm talk slower He Man likes Skeletors voice.

He Man   dam you  leave me alone  im busy   with my life partner playing catch and hide the weazel.

Homegirl you better stop erasing accounts or im gonna get medevil on your **** He Man said in his naughty man voice.

Promise Skeletor replied.

BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL   WAIT  WHATS THE REST OF THIS?

****** it been so long I cant remember who gets ******* first.
Wait what was i talking about?
I like ice cream   mmmm  ice cream.

Just then the line snapped it was cut by that naughty meat puppet
dam you Skeletor  this battle has just begun.


Dont miss the next really weird *** episode of HeMan.

Todays lesson.
Well children  never play with matches.
Cause they sometimes dont work so go out and get this
years sure fire hot **** seller  toy.

The  He Man Flame Thrower yes little Timmy wont have to take **** from  that bully anymore  just light his fat *** up like a christmas tree
and if this offended you get a life mmm He Man  like life and *******

It was cold last night.  Grandma’s homemade crocheted afghan wasn't long enough to cover foot to nose. It had too many holes where hugs should have been woven. Numb toes woke first in hollow shoes, dancing and eager for morning to come. I ignored them.  But a filled bladder proved too much to pass, so I rose to *** in the paper soda cup I’d saved for the purpose. Now, hours later, the sun is shining, burning our condensed breathes from the windshield. It’s warm again.

We’re both hungry again, too. The yorkie yaps his need in time with mine:

“Let’s eat.”

“Hush! Wait, “ I say;

“Gotta check our balance.”

As if He were listening... no reason to draw attention of passersby to out position inside.

There’s not much left in my pocket; bank’s closed ‘till tomorrow.

Yesterday’s highlight was our dollar store lunch for which we gave thanks:

cold, fat-pocked, vacuum-packed salami between pale, tasteless crackers. The biscuits came in a shiny mylar bag which I found more fascinating than than its contents, even on an empty stomach.

All that for two dollars. No tax. A deal.

The disks of sustenance were ringed in pink plastic which pulled away easily from the soft, greasy “meat”. Dog ate meat, accepting crackers, seemingly, as a reluctant favor when the flesh was finished. I didn't mind sharing salami. The texture of crunchy crackers was better, no matter how wanting for flavor they were.

I thought of the animals from which the label claimed the slices were made: chickens, pigs and cows; lives awaiting harvest to an unknown and grander purpose. We’re not so different. Dog, me, living only in cages of different sizes. From enough distance, who would know?

Just before - they cried with horror. I might, if I were looking. I don't.  It’s nice that weeds and wheat don’t weep. It makes it easier to eat them. God prefers blood but I could never understand why. I used to stare, silent, at stars for the answer, printed words found lacking. But, for certain, we like ******, we just give it different names so it tastes better. Like hamburger.

It is Sunday.

Better dressed,  I could be in church reading words, pretending to sing hymns, eating His flesh. That has always had the form of torn shreds of bread because He’s been dead forever, and now fat free. The blood of wonder, still sweet and fruity in tiny plastic glasses, is not the thick congealing kind like mine or dog’s.  There's a reason to look forward.

(I'm too slow to block blows and can't see up-close without glasses anymore. So she always goes for my eyes first. It doesn't hurt. Machines wear out - they don't feel pain. But I still bleed -it stains the torn shirt.)

Jesus doesn’t allow dogs, so we sit outside and imagine grace behind the colored glass. At least I do. Dog can't read and prefers to scratch the grass. Besides, he might ***. They say He cried, too ... just before harvest. Jesus should have had a dog.

There will be a call later, as always. We’ll go back of habit, pretend mind storms are over. We’ll get warm again. Eat real food again. Get another broken finger or whacked on back of the head by a random household implement. I won’t flinch; just wait like another chicken or man. We’re cursed in knowing our ends. Dog licks my hand. Jesus might understand.

They’re really rockin’ in Bradford,
Off the Pennine Way.
Deep in the heart of Yorkshire
And all round Robin Hood’s Bay.
All over South Ossett
Down there to New Farnley.
Roast beef and Yorkie Puddings,
God’s County Yay!

Yull see ‘em rambling near Ilkley,
Right to the county line,
Sheffield steel and Wednesday –
A football team so fine.
Better still, Leeds United,
Greatest club of all time.

Yorkshire, Kings of Cricket,
Oh what a boon!
Get down that wicket,
We’ll be champs by June.
Down a ginnel or snicket,
See our Olympic Champs.
Coal Miner Picket,
Relight those lamps.

Racing pigeons and ferrets,
Stereotypes tha knows.
Over t’top in Lancashire,
Them there’s our foes.
We’re the greatest county,
Our pride really glows.
We know you all do hate us,
It keeps us on our toes.

So we’ll be rockin’ in Yorkshire,
What more can I say?
Us Tykes're as barmy as Barnsley,
So I’ll be on my way.

Paul Butters

(With due thanks to Chuck Berry and also The Beach Boys)
© PB 2\5\2016.  Slightly Amended 14\4\2023.

Doggerel

The limerick is one of the most common and most popular forms of doggerel. This is one of my favorite 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.
―Arthur Henry Reginald Buller


I find it interesting that one of the best revelations of the weirdness and zaniness of relativity can be found in a limerick! The limerick above inspired me to pen a rejoinder:

***-Tronomical
by Michael R. Burch

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



These are "subversive" poems of mine, pardon the pun:

Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good,
half the Bible
is libel.

I came up with this epigram after reading the Bible from cover to cover at age eleven, and wondering how anyone could call the biblical God "good."



What Would Santa Claus Say
by Michael R. Burch

What would Santa Claus say,
I wonder,
about Jesus returning
to **** and Plunder?

For he’ll likely return
on Christmas Day
to blow the bad
little boys away!

When He flashes like lightning
across the skies
and many a homosexual
dies,

when the harlots and heretics
are ripped asunder,
what will the Easter Bunny think,
I wonder?



A Child’s Christmas Prayer of Despair for a Hindu Saint
by Michael R. Burch

Santa Claus, for Christmas, please,
don’t bring me toys, or games, or candy . . .
just . . . Santa, please,
I’m on my knees! . . .
please don’t let Jesus torture Gandhi!



***** Nilly
by Michael R. Burch

for the Demiurge, aka Yahweh/Jehovah

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You forced them to run
all their days uphilly.
They ran till they dropped―
life’s a pickle, dilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
They say I should worship you!
Oh, really!
They say I should pray
so you’ll not act illy.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?



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!

Originally published by Light



Door Mouse
by Michael R. Burch

I’m sure it’s not good for my heart—
the way it will jump-start
when the mouse scoots the floor
(I try to **** it with the door,
never fast enough, or
fling a haphazard shoe ...
always too slow too)
in the strangest zig-zaggedy fashion
absurdly inconvenient for mashin’,
till our hearts, each maniacally revvin’,
make us both early candidates for heaven.



The Humpback
by Michael R. Burch

The humpback is a gullet
equipped with snarky fins.
It has a winning smile:
and when it SMILES, it wins
as miles and miles of herring
excite its fearsome grins.
So beware, unwary whalers,
lest you drown, sans feet and shins!
​


Apologies to España
by Michael R. Burch

the reign
in Trump’s brain
falls mainly as mansplain



No Star
by Michael R. Burch

Trump, you're no "star."
Putin made you an American Czar.
Now, if we continue down this dark path you've chosen,
pretty soon we'll be wearing lederhosen.



tRUMP is the **** of many jokes.—Michael R. Burch



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.



Less Heroic Couplets: ****** Most Fowl!
by Michael R. Burch

“****** most foul!”
cried the mouse to the owl.
“Friend, I’m no sinner;
you’re merely my dinner!”
the wise owl replied
as the tasty snack died.

Originally published by Lighten Up Online and in Potcake Chapbook #7

NOTE: In an attempt to demonstrate that not all couplets are heroic, I have created a series of poems called “Less Heroic Couplets.” I believe even poets should abide by truth-in-advertising laws! And I believe such laws should extend to Creators who claim to be loving, wise, merciful, just, etc., while forcing innocent mice to provide owls with late-night snacks. ― Michael R. Burch



Animal Limericks

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."



Stage Craft-y
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!"



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 Pelican't
by Michael R. Burch

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!



Nonsense Verse about Writing Verse

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.

Originally published by Grand Little Things



Other Animal Poems

Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!

Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.



honeybee
by Michael R. Burch

love was a little treble thing―
prone to sing
and sometimes to sting



Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’
by Michael R. Burch

Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’
the bees rise
in a dizzy circle of two.
Oh, when I’m with you,
I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too.



Generation Gap
by Michael R. Burch

A quahog clam,
age 405,
said, “Hey, it’s great
to be alive!”

I disagreed,
not feeling nifty,
babe though I am,
just pushing fifty.

Note: A quahog clam found off the coast of Ireland is the longest-lived animal on record, at an estimated age of 405 years.



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



Pls refudiate

“Refudiate” this,
miffed, misunderstood Ms!―
Shakespeare, you’re not
(more like Yoda, but hot).
Your grammar’s atrocious;
Great Poets would know this.

You lack any plan
save to flatten Iran
like some cute Mini-Me
cloned from G. W. B.

Admit it, Ms. Palin!
Stop your winkin’ and wailin’―
only “heroes” like Nero
fiddle sparks at Ground Zero.

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

I wrote the last poem above after Sarah Palin compared herself to Shakespeare, who coined new words, rather than admit her mistake when she used "refudiate" in a Tweet rather than "repudiate." The copyright notices above are ironic, as the poems above were written and published before 2012.



Nonsense Verse

There was an old man from Peru
who dreamed he was eating his shoe.
He awoke in the night
with a terrible fright
to discover his dream had come true.
―Variation on a classic limerick 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.
― 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!
―"The Better Man" by Michael R. Burch



The English are very hospitable,
but tea-less, alas, they grow pitiable ...
or pitiless, rather,
and quite in a lather!
O bother, they're more than formidable.
―"Of Tetley’s and V-2's," or, "Why Not to Bomb the Brits" by Michael R. Burch



Relativity, the theorists’ creed,
says all mass increases with speed.
My *** grows when I sit it.
Albert Einstein, get with it;
equate its deflation, I plead!
― Michael R. Burch


　
Hawking, who makes my head spin,
says time may flow backward. I grin,
imagining the surprise
in my mothers’ eyes
when I head for the womb once again!
― 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!
― Michael R. Burch



A proper 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.
― Michael R. Burch
　


There once was a troglodyte, Mary,
whose poots were impressively airy.
To her children’s deep shame,
their foul condo became
the first cave to employ a canary.
― 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!
― Michael R. Burch



The Humpback
by Michael R. Burch

The humpback is a gullet
equipped with snarky fins.
It has a winning smile:
and when it SMILES, it wins
as miles and miles of herring
excite its fearsome grins.
So beware, unwary whalers,
lest you drown, sans feet and shins!



Door Mouse
by Michael R. Burch

I’m sure it’s not good for my heart—
the way it will jump-start
when the mouse scoots the floor
(I try to **** it with the door,
never fast enough, or
fling a haphazard shoe ...
always too slow too)
in the strangest zig-zaggedy fashion
absurdly inconvenient for mashin’,
till our hearts, each maniacally revvin’,
make us both early candidates for heaven.



Ding **** ...
by Michael R. Burch

for Fliss

An impertinent bit of sunlight
defeated a goddess, NIGHT.
Hooray!, cried the clover,
Her reign is over!
But she certainly gave us a fright!



Be very careful what you pray for!
by Michael R. Burch

Now that his T’s been depleted
the Saint is upset, feeling cheated.
His once-fiery lust?
Just a chemical bust:
no “devil” cast out or defeated.



The Flu Fly Flew
by Michael R. Burch

A fly with the flu foully flew
up my nose—thought I’d die—had to sue!
Was the small villain fined?
An abrupt judge declined
my case, since I’d “failed to achoo!”



Hell-Bound Hounds
by Michael R. Burch

We have five dogs and every one’s a sinner!
I swear it’s true—they’ll steal each other’s dinner!

They’ll **** before they’re married. That’s unlawful!
They’ll even ***** in public. Eek, so awful!

And when it’s time for treats (don’t gasp!), they’ll beg!
They have no pride! They’ll even **** your leg!

Our oldest Yorkie murdered dear, sweet Olive,
our helpless hamster! None will go to college

or work to pay their room and board, or vets!
When the Devil says, “*** here!” they all yip, “Let’s!”

And yet they’re sweet and loyal, so I doubt
the Lord will dump them in hell’s dark redoubt . . .

which means there’s hope for you, perhaps for me.
But as for cats? I say, “Best wait and see.”


Menu Venue
by Michael R. Burch

At the passing of the shark
the dolphins cried Hark!;

cute cuttlefish sighed, Gee
there will be a serener sea
to its utmost periphery!;

the dogfish barked,
so joyously!;

pink porpoises piped Whee!
excitedly,
delightedly.

But ...

Will there be as much glee
when there’s no you and me?


Anti-Vegan Manifesto
by Michael R. Burch

Let us
avoid lettuce,
sincerely,
and also celery!


Rising Fall
by Michael R. Burch

after Keats

Seasons of mellow fruitfulness
collect at last into mist
some brisk wind will dismiss ...

Where, indeed, are the showers of April?
Where, indeed, the bright flowers of May?
But feel no dismay ...

It’s time to make hay!

I believe the closing line was influenced by this remark J. R. R. Tolkien made about the inspiration for his plucky hobbits: “I've always been impressed that we're here surviving because of the indomitable courage of quite small people against impossible odds: jungles, volcanoes, wild beasts ... they struggle on, almost blindly in a way.” Thus, whatever our apprehensions about the coming winter, when autumn falls and fall rises, it’s time to make hay.


How It Goes, Or Doesn’t
by Michael R. Burch

My face is getting craggier.
My pants are getting saggier.
My ear-hair’s getting shaggier.
My wife is getting naggier.
I’m getting old!

My memory’s plumb awful.
My eyesight is unlawful.
I eschew a tofu waffle.
My wife’s an Eiffel eyeful.
I’m getting old!

My temperature is colder.
My molars need more solder.
Soon I’ll need a boulder-holder.
My wife seized up. Unfold her!
I’m getting old!



A More Likely Plot for “Romeo and Juliet”
by Michael R. Burch

Wont to croon
by the light of the moon
on a rickety ladder,
mad as a hatter,
Romeo crashed to the earth in a swoon,
broke his leg,
had to beg,
repented of falling in love too soon.

A nurse, averse
to his seductive verse,
aware of his madness
and familial badness,
searched for the stiletto in her purse.

Meanwhile, Juliet
began to fret
that the roguish poet
(wouldn’t you know it?)
had pledged his “love” because of a bet!

A gang of young thugs
and loutish lugs
had their faces engraved on “wanted” mugs.
They were doomed to fail,
ended up in jail,
became young fascists and cried “Sieg Heil!”

No tickets were sold,
no tickets were bought,
because, in the end, it all came to naught.

Exeunt stage left.



Apologies to España
by Michael R. Burch

the reign
in Trump’s brain
falls mainly as mansplain



No Star
by Michael R. Burch

Trump, you're no "star."
Putin made you an American Czar.
Now, if we continue down this dark path you've chosen,
pretty soon we'll be wearing lederhosen.


tRUMP is the **** of many jokes.—Michael R. Burch



Doggerel about Doggerel

The Board
by Michael R. Burch

Accessible rhyme is never good.
The penalty is understood―
soft titters from dark board rooms where
the businessmen paste on their hair
and, Walter Mitties, woo the Muse
with reprimands of Dr. Seuss.

The best book of the age sold two,
or three, or four (but not to you),
strange copies of the ones before,
misreadings that delight the board.
They sit and clap; their revenues
fall trillions short of Mother Goose.



Longer Doggerel

When I Was Small, I Grew
by Michael R. Burch

When I was small,
God held me in thrall:
Yes, He was my All
but my spirit was crushed.

As I grew older
my passions grew bolder
even as Christ grew colder.
My distraught mother blushed:

what was I thinking,
with feral lust stinking?
If I saw a girl winking
my face, heated, flushed.

“Go see the pastor!”
Mom screamed. A disaster.
I whacked away faster,
hellbound, yet nonplused.

Whips! Chains! *******!
Sweet, sweet, my Elation!
With each new sensation,
blue blood groinward rushed.

Did God disapprove?
Was Christ not behooved?
At least I was moved
by my hellish lust.



Happily Never After
by Michael R. Burch

Happily never after, we lived unmerrily
(write it!―like disaster) in Our Kingdom by the See
as the man from Porlock’s laughter drowned out love’s threnody.

We ditched the red wheelbarrow in slovenly Tennessee
and made a picturebook of poems, a postcard for Tse-Tse,
a list of resolutions we knew we couldn’t keep,
and asylum decorations for the King in his dark sleep.

We made it new so often strange newness, wearing old,
peeled off, and something rotten gleamed yellow, not like gold:―
like carelessness, or cowardice, and redolent of ***.
We stumbled off, our awkwardness―new Keystone comedy.

Huge cloudy symbols blocked the sun; onlookers strained to see.
We said We were the only One. Our gaseous Melody
had made us Joshuas, and so―the Bible, new-rewrit,

with god removed, replaced by Show and Glyphics and Sanskrit,
seemed marvelous to Us, although King Ezra said, “It’s Sh-t.”

We spent unhappy hours in Our Kingdom of the Pea,
drunk on such Awesome Power only Emperors can See.
We were Imagists and Vorticists, Projectivists, a Dunce,
Anarchists and Antarcticists and anti-Christs, and once
We’d made the world Our oyster and stowed away the pearl
of Our too-, too-polished wisdom, unanchored of the world,
We sailed away to Lilliput, to Our Kingdom by the See
and piped the rats to join Us, to live unmerrily
hereever and hereafter, in Our Kingdom of the Pea,
in the miniature ship Disaster in a jar in Tennessee.



Doggerel about Dogs

Dog Daze
by Michael R. Burch

Sweet Oz is a soulful snuggler;
he really is one of the best.
Sometimes in bed
he snuggles my head,
though he mostly just plops on my chest.

I think Oz was made to love
from the first ray of light to the dark,
but his great love for me
is exceeded (oh gee!)
by his Truly Great Passion: to Bark.



Oz is the Boss!
by Michael R. Burch

Oz is the boss!
Because? Because ...
Because of the wonderful things he does!

He barks like a tyrant
for treats and a hydrant;
his voice far more regal
than mere greyhound or beagle;
his serfs must obey him
or his yipping will slay them!

Oz is the boss!
Because? Because ...
Because of the wonderful things he does!



Excoriation of a Treat Slave
by Michael R. Burch

I am his Highness’s dog at Kew.
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
―Alexander Pope

We practice our fierce Yapping,
for when the treat slaves come
they’ll grant Us our desire.
(They really are that dumb!)

They’ll never catch Us napping―
our Ears pricked, keen and sharp.
When they step into Our parlor,
We’ll leap awake, and Bark.

But one is rather doltish;
he doesn’t understand
the meaning of Our savage,
imperial, wild Command.

The others are quite docile
and bow to Us on cue.
We think the dull one wrote a poem
about some Dog from Kew

who never grasped Our secret,
whose mind stayed think, and dark.
It’s a question of obedience
conveyed by a Lordly Bark.

But as for playing fetch,
well, that’s another matter.
We think the dullard’s also
as mad as any hatter

and doesn’t grasp his duty
to fling Us slobbery *****
which We’d return to him, mincingly,
here in Our royal halls.



Bed Head, or, the Ballad of
Beth and her Fur Babies
by Michael R. Burch

When Beth and her babies
prepare for “good night”
sweet rituals of kisses
and cuddles commence.

First Wickett, the eldest,
whose mane has grown light
with the wisdom of age
and advanced senescence
is tucked in, “just right.”

Then Mary, the mother,
is smothered with kisses
in a way that befits
such an angelic missus.

Then Melody, lambkin,
and sweet, soulful Oz
and cute, clever Xander
all clap their clipped paws
and follow sweet Beth
to their high nightly roost
where they’ll sleep on her head
(or, perhaps, her caboose).



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!



On the Horns of a Dilemma (I)
by Michael R. Burch

Love has become preposterous
for the over-endowed rhinoceros:
when he meets the right miss
how the hell can he kiss
when his horn is so ***** it lofts her thus?

I need an artist or cartoonist to create an image of a male rhino lifting his prospective mate into the air during an abortive kiss. Any takers?



On the Horns of a Dilemma (II)
by Michael R. Burch

Love has become preposterous
for the over-endowed rhinoceros:
when he meets the right miss
how the hell can he kiss
when his horn deforms her esophagus?



On the Horns of a Dilemma (III)
by Michael R. Burch

A wino rhino said, “I know!
I have a horn I cannot blow!
And so,
ergo,
I’ll watch the lovely spigot flow!



The Horns of a Dilemma Solved, if not Solvent
by Michael R. Burch

A wine-addled rhino debated
the prospect of living unmated
due to the scorn
gals showed for his horn,
then lost it to poachers, sedated.



Less Heroic Couplets: Word to the Unwise
by Michael R. Burch

I wanted to be good as gold,
but being good, as I’ve been told,
requires something, discipline,
I simply have no interest in!



Villanelle of an Opportunist
by Michael R. Burch

I’m not looking for someone to save.
A gal has to do what a gal has to do:
I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave.

How many highways to hell must I pave
with intentions imagined, not true?
I’m not looking for someone to save.

Fools praise compassion while weaklings rave,
but a gal has to do what a gal has to do.
I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave.

Some praise the Lord but the Devil’s my fave
because he has led me to you!
I’m not looking for someone to save.

In the land of the free and the home of the brave,
a gal has to do what a gal has to do.
I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave.

Every day without meds becomes a close shave
and the razor keeps tempting me too.
I’m not looking for someone to save:
I’m looking for a man with one foot in the grave.



Less Heroic Couplets: Shell Game
by Michael R. Burch

I saw a turtle squirtle!
Before you ask, “How fertile?”
The squirt came from its mouth.
Why do your thoughts fly south?



Helen Keller
saw more than the stellar-
visioned
and the televisioned.
—Michael R. Burch



Antsy kids of the world, unite!
You don't like facts, so fight!
Call them all “haters,”
those cool, calm debaters,
then your mommies can tuck you in tight.
—Michael R. Burch



Ireland’s Ire has Landed

The luck of the Irish has failed:
Trump’s landed and cannot be jailed!
From Killarney to Derry
the natives are very
despondent and bombs have been mailed.

Donald Trump has alarmed Country Clare:
the Irish are crying, “Beware!
He won’t pay his tax,
his manners are lax,
and what the hell’s up with his hair?”

The Donald has landed in Doonbeg
(Ireland). Why? For a noon beg:
he’s running real low
on cash, so you know
he’ll fit like a freakin’ square peg.

The luck of the Irish has faltered.
Trump’s there and he cannot be haltered.
From Killarney to Derry
the natives are very
insistent his visa be altered.



Poets laud Justice’s
high principles.
Trump just gropes
her raw genitals.
—Michael R. Burch



Zip It
by Michael R. Burch

Trump pulled a stunt,
wore his pants back-to-front,
and now he’s the **** of bald jokes:
“Is he coming, or going?”
“Eeek! His diaper is showing!”
But it’s all much ado, says Snopes.



Limerick-Ode to a Much-Eaten ***
by Michael R. Burch

There wonst wus a president, Trump,
whose greatest *** (et) wus his ****.
It was padded ’n’ shiny,
that great orange hiney,
but to drain it we’d need a sump pump!



On the Horns of a Dilemma (I)
by Michael R. Burch

Love has become preposterous
for the over-endowed rhinoceros:
when he meets the right miss
how the hell can he kiss
when his horn deforms her esophagus?

On the Horns of a Dilemma (II)
by Michael R. Burch

Love has become preposterous
for the over-endowed rhinoceros:
when he meets the right miss
how the hell can he kiss
when his horn is so ***** it lofts her thus?

On the Horns of a Dilemma (III)
by Michael R. Burch

A wino rhino said, “I know!
I have a horn I cannot blow!
And so,
ergo,
I’ll watch the lovely spigot flow!

The Horns of a Dilemma Solved, if not Solvent
by Michael R. Burch

A wine-addled rhino debated
the prospect of living unmated
due to the cruel scorn
gals showed for his horn,
but then lost it to poachers, sedated.



A Possible Explanation for the Madness of March Hares
by Michael R. Burch

March hares,
beware!
Spring’s a tease, a flirt!

This is yet another late freeze alert.
Better comfort your babies;
the weather has rabies.



Voice of (T)reason
by Michael R. Burch

Love is the highest, the greatest, the grandest!
Love has us all and our lovers in thrall!

Love, but don’t fall.

Love is the coolest, the truest, the Yule-est!
Love is sage Andrew’s Marvell-ous ball!

Love, but don’t fall.

Love is the sweetest, the deepest, the fleetest!
Yes, that’s the problem – a pall over all.

Love, but don’t fall.



Final Ballad of the Unhappy Camper
by Michael R. Burch

I’m low on ****,
lost my fizz,
out of biz.

Flabby and *****,
morose and mourny,
gals’re scorny.

Friggin’ Low T Hell!
Unable to swell!
"More sleep"? Do tell!



Less Heroic Couplets: Weird Beard
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Richard Thomas Moore

C’mon, admit—love’s truly weird:
why does a ****** need a beard?

Should making love produce foul poxes?
What can we make of such paradoxes?

And having made love, what the hell's the point
of ending up with a sore, limp joint?

Who invented love, which we all pursue
like rats in a maze after sniffing glue?



This is my randy version of a classic limerick originally published by Arthur Henry Reginald Buller in Punch on Dec. 19, 1923.

An incestuous physicist, Bright,
made love at speeds faster than light.
She had *** one day
in her relative way,
then came on the previous night!

There was a young **** star of Ghent
whose get-up just got up and went.
Too sleepy for ***,
her fans became ex-
subscribers, and no checks were sent.
—Michael R. Burch

Fair Elle was an eely lover
who squiggled beneath the covers ...
She was hard to pin down!
When I did it, she’d frown,
then wouldn’t do none of my druthers!

There once was a camel who loved to ****.
Please get your crude minds out of their slump!
He loved to give rides on his huge, lordly lump!
—Michael R. Burch

I wanted to live like a sheik, in a harem.
But I live like a monk without gals ’cause I scare ’em.
—Michael R. Burch



Mouldy Oldie, or, Septuagenarian Ode to Cheese Mould
by Michael R. Burch

I’m getting old
and battling mould —
it’s growing on my cheese!

My phone’s on hold
to report the mould —
my life is not a breeze!

I pray and pray,
"Send help my way —
good Lord, I’m on my knees!"

But truth be told,
it’s oversold —
that’s it, I’m done with cheese!



Wonderworks
by Michael R. Burch

History’s
mysteries
abound
& astound,
found
(profound)
the whole earth ’round,
even if mostly
underground.

I wrote the poem above after discovering an article about the aptly-named Wonderwerk Cave in an ancient (March 2016) falling-apart issue of Discover that I rescued from my car. The cave in question lies in South Africa’s Northern Cape province, around 300 miles southwest of the “Cradle of Civilization.” Artifacts discovered in the Wonderwerk Cave appear to be even more ancient than the Cradle’s. According to the article, “The density of stone artifacts in the region is staggering.” The use of fire may now date back as far as 1.8 million years.



The Procrastinator’s Creed
by Michael R. Burch

It’s always, “Tomorrow, I’ll do it.”
Work? I eschew it.
I never collect money I’ve loaned
and the rest of this poem’s been postponed.



WHEN MAN IS GONE
by Michael R. Burch

When man is gone
won’t the sun still rise?

Will anyone care
that he isn’t there?

Will the porpoises
lack purpose,

the marigolds
fold?

Will the doves and the deer
weep bitter tears?

Or will life continue,
glad to be off his menu?



That Mella Fella
by Michael R. Burch

for John Mella, former editor of LIGHT

There once was a fella
named Mella,
who, if you weren’t funny,
would tell ya.

But he was cool, clever, nice,
gave some splendid advice,
and if you were good,
he would sell ya.



One for the Thumb!
by Michael R. Burch

Counting rings, the counters come,
marching to the same sad drum:

“Your GOAT has two, but ours has four!”

“Our GOAT has six, and six is more!”

“One for the thumb! Our GOAT’s the best!”

But Robert Horry’s not impressed.

Jim Loscutoff is trying on
the mantle of the GOAT, anon.

Frank Ramsey laughs himself to tears:
since he won seven in just nine years.

Tom Heinsohn, K.C. Jones, Satch Sanders
and Hondo all have eight, ring ganders.

Sam Jones has rings to fill both hands
(that’s ten for all math-challenged fans),
won in twelve years, as truth demands.

Meanwhile, the only GOAT we know,
Bill Russell, has one ... for the toe!



Mating Calls, or, Purdy Please!
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.
At 3:42, I was feeling blue,
and so I dialed up Miss You-Know-Who,
thinking to bed her
and quite possibly wed her,
but she summoned the cops; now my bail is due!

5.
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!

6.
It was nearly twelve-thirty
when, in need of something skirty,
I rang up (to bang up) the reclusive Miss Purty ...
She hung up the phone
so I banged off, alone.



Hot Cross Buns
by Michael R. Burch

Lexi, Lexi, Lexi,
so lovely and perplexy,
please meet me for a meal
spicy and Tex-Mexy.

Done with hot fried fritters,
bend over, show your knickers;
then, as your *** cheeks redden,
ignore the public snickers.



New Year’s Dissolution
by Michael R. Burch

The year draws to a close ...
Who knows
where the hell the time goes?

I’m up to my nose
in ill-fitting clothes!

They canceled my shows!
My corns grow in rows!

And yet I’ll survive ...
Perhaps ... I suppose ...

So let’s ring the New Year in
with tonic and gin
and greet the foolish Babe
with an even-more-foolish grin!



Her Whirlwind Life
by Michael R. Burch

for Tallulah Bankhead

“Never slow down
or someone’ll catch up.
Virgins are boring,
give me a ****.”

“Male or female,
it really don’t matter.
Life is too short
to live it in a halter.”

Keywords/Tags: doggerel, nonsense, light verse, light poetry, humor, silliness, limerick, jingle, jangle, mrbepi

LOST IN FRANCE

In the distance
a dog throws its voice

so it seems
the trees are barking.

Sun and shadow
playing tag

between rows and rows
of trees.

France is made of
landscape and light.

I feel as if I am
walking in a painting

that is wet yet.

I nothing but
a mobile little smudge.

I drink in the light
as if my soul thirsted for it.

Now a yellow dog
leaves its post

to chase me half way
down its road.

Now a Yorkie
guards the crossroads.

Here a sheepdog
silently trails me

until it has successfully
seen me off its turf.

I smile sheepishly.

I, lost and found
all at the one time.

Finally the road turns and
the village runs out to meet me.

I, now only lost
in wonder.

Doggerel

The limerick is one of the most common and most popular forms of doggerel. This is one of my favorite 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.
―Arthur Henry Reginald Buller


I find it interesting that one of the best revelations of the weirdness and zaniness of relativity can be found in a limerick! The limerick above inspired me to pen a rejoinder:

***-Tronomical
by Michael R. Burch

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



Woeful Waffles
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Richard Thomas Moore

I think it’s woeful
and should be unlawful
to eat those awful
tofu waffles!



These are "subversive" poems of mine, pardon the pun:

Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good,
half the Bible
is libel.

I came up with this epigram after reading the Bible from cover to cover at age eleven, and wondering how anyone could call the biblical God "good."



What Would Santa Claus Say
by Michael R. Burch

What would Santa Claus say,
I wonder,
about Jesus returning
to **** and Plunder?

For he’ll likely return
on Christmas Day
to blow the bad
little boys away!

When He flashes like lightning
across the skies
and many a homosexual
dies,

when the harlots and heretics
are ripped asunder,
what will the Easter Bunny think,
I wonder?



A Child’s Christmas Prayer of Despair for a Hindu Saint
by Michael R. Burch

Santa Claus, for Christmas, please,
don’t bring me toys, or games, or candy . . .
just . . . Santa, please,
I’m on my knees! . . .
please don’t let Jesus torture Gandhi!



***** Nilly
by Michael R. Burch

for the Demiurge, aka Yahweh/Jehovah

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
You forced them to run
all their days uphilly.
They ran till they dropped―
life’s a pickle, dilly.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?
They say I should worship you!
Oh, really!
They say I should pray
so you’ll not act illy.
Isn’t it silly, ***** Nilly?



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!

Originally published by Light



Less Heroic Couplets: ****** Most Fowl!
by Michael R. Burch

“****** most foul!”
cried the mouse to the owl.
“Friend, I’m no sinner;
you’re merely my dinner!”
the wise owl replied
as the tasty snack died.



Animal Limericks by Michael R. Burch

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."



Stage Craft-y
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!"



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 Pelican't
by Michael R. Burch

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!



Nonsense Verse about Writing Verse

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.



Other Animal Poems by Michael R. Burch

Lance-Lot
by Michael R. Burch

Preposterous bird!
Inelegant! Absurd!

Until the great & mighty heron
brandishes his fearsome sword.



honeybee
by Michael R. Burch

love was a little treble thing―
prone to sing
and sometimes to sting



Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’
by Michael R. Burch

Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’
the bees rise
in a dizzy circle of two.
Oh, when I’m with you,
I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too.



Generation Gap
by Michael R. Burch

A quahog clam,
age 405,
said, “Hey, it’s great
to be alive!”

I disagreed,
not feeling nifty,
babe though I am,
just pushing fifty.

Note: A quahog clam found off the coast of Ireland is the longest-lived animal on record, at an estimated age of 405 years.



The Blobfish
by Michael R. Burch

You can call me a "blob"
with your oversized gob,
but what's your excuse,
great gargantuan Zeus
whose once-chiseled abs
are now marbleized flab?

But what really alarms me
(how I wish you'd abstain)
is when you start using
that oversized "brain."
Consider the planet! Refrain!



Door Mouse
by Michael R. Burch

I’m sure it’s not good for my heart—
the way it will jump-start
when the mouse scoots the floor
(I try to **** it with the door,
never fast enough, or
fling a haphazard shoe ...
always too slow too)
in the strangest zig-zaggedy fashion
absurdly inconvenient for mashin’,
till our hearts, each maniacally revvin’,
make us both early candidates for heaven.



The Humpback
by Michael R. Burch

The humpback is a gullet
equipped with snarky fins.
It has a winning smile:
and when it SMILES, it wins
as miles and miles of herring
excite its fearsome grins.
So beware, unwary whalers,
lest you drown, sans feet and shins!
​


Apologies to España
by Michael R. Burch

the reign
in Trump’s brain
falls mainly as mansplain



No Star
by Michael R. Burch

Trump, you're no "star."
Putin made you an American Czar.
Now, if we continue down this dark path you've chosen,
pretty soon we'll be wearing lederhosen.



tRUMP is the **** of many jokes.—Michael R. Burch



As one critic put it, the limerick "is the vehicle of cultivated, unrepressed ****** humor in the English language." But while some experts claim that the only "real" limerick is a ***** one, the form really took off initially, in terms of popularity, as a vehicle for nonsense verse and children's poems. And the limerick has has frequently been used for political purposes. Here are are three muckraking 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



Pls refudiate

“Refudiate” this,
miffed, misunderstood Ms!―
Shakespeare, you’re not
(more like Yoda, but hot).
Your grammar’s atrocious;
Great Poets would know this.

You lack any plan
save to flatten Iran
like some cute Mini-Me
cloned from G. W. B.

Admit it, Ms. Palin!
Stop your winkin’ and wailin’―
only “heroes” like Nero
fiddle sparks at Ground Zero.

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

I wrote the last poem above after Sarah Palin compared herself to Shakespeare, who coined new words, rather than admit her mistake when she used "refudiate" in a Tweet rather than "repudiate." The copyright notices above are ironic, as the poems above were written and published before 2012.



Nonsense Verse

There was an old man from Peru
who dreamed he was eating his shoe.
He awoke in the night
with a terrible fright
to discover his dream had come true.
―Variation on a classic limerick 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.
― 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!
―"The Better Man" by Michael R. Burch



The English are very hospitable,
but tea-less, alas, they grow pitiable ...
or pitiless, rather,
and quite in a lather!
O bother, they're more than formidable.
―"Of Tetley’s and V-2's," or, "Why Not to Bomb the Brits" by Michael R. Burch



Relativity, the theorists’ creed,
proves all mass increases with speed.
My *** grows when I sit it.
Albert Einstein, get with it;
equate its deflation, I plead!
― Michael R. Burch


　
Hawking, who makes my head spin,
says time may flow backward. I grin,
imagining the surprise
in my mothers’ eyes
when I head for the womb once again!
― 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!
― Michael R. Burch



A proper 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.
― Michael R. Burch
　


There once was a troglodyte, Mary,
whose poots were impressively airy.
To her children’s deep shame,
their foul condo became
the first cave to employ a canary.
― 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!
― Michael R. Burch



Doggerel about Doggerel

The Board
by Michael R. Burch

Accessible rhyme is never good.
The penalty is understood―
soft titters from dark board rooms where
the businessmen paste on their hair
and, Walter Mitties, woo the Muse
with reprimands of Dr. Seuss.

The best book of the age sold two,
or three, or four (but not to you),
strange copies of the ones before,
misreadings that delight the board.
They sit and clap; their revenues
fall trillions short of Mother Goose.



Longer Doggerel

When I Was Small, I Grew
by Michael R. Burch

When I was small,
God held me in thrall:
Yes, He was my All
but my spirit was crushed.

As I grew older
my passions grew bolder
even as Christ grew colder.
My distraught mother blushed:

what was I thinking,
with feral lust stinking?
If I saw a girl winking
my face, heated, flushed.

“Go see the pastor!”
Mom screamed. A disaster.
I whacked away faster,
hellbound, yet nonplused.

Whips! Chains! *******!
Sweet, sweet, my Elation!
With each new sensation,
blue blood groinward rushed.

Did God disapprove?
Was Christ not behooved?
At least I was moved
by my hellish lust.



Happily Never After
by Michael R. Burch

Happily never after, we lived unmerrily
(write it!―like disaster) in Our Kingdom by the See
as the man from Porlock’s laughter drowned out love’s threnody.

We ditched the red wheelbarrow in slovenly Tennessee
and made a picturebook of poems, a postcard for Tse-Tse,
a list of resolutions we knew we couldn’t keep,
and asylum decorations for the King in his dark sleep.

We made it new so often strange newness, wearing old,
peeled off, and something rotten gleamed yellow, not like gold:―
like carelessness, or cowardice, and redolent of ***.
We stumbled off, our awkwardness―new Keystone comedy.

Huge cloudy symbols blocked the sun; onlookers strained to see.
We said We were the only One. Our gaseous Melody
had made us Joshuas, and so―the Bible, new-rewrit,

with god removed, replaced by Show and Glyphics and Sanskrit,
seemed marvelous to Us, although King Ezra said, “It’s Sh-t.”

We spent unhappy hours in Our Kingdom of the Pea,
drunk on such Awesome Power only Emperors can See.
We were Imagists and Vorticists, Projectivists, a Dunce,
Anarchists and Antarcticists and anti-Christs, and once
We’d made the world Our oyster and stowed away the pearl
of Our too-, too-polished wisdom, unanchored of the world,
We sailed away to Lilliput, to Our Kingdom by the See
and piped the rats to join Us, to live unmerrily
hereever and hereafter, in Our Kingdom of the Pea,
in the miniature ship Disaster in a jar in Tennessee.



The Humpback
by Michael R. Burch

The humpback is a gullet
equipped with snarky fins.
It has a winning smile:
and when it SMILES, it wins
as miles and miles of herring
excite its fearsome grins.
So beware, unwary whalers,
lest you drown, sans feet and shins!



Door Mouse
by Michael R. Burch

I’m sure it’s not good for my heart—
the way it will jump-start
when the mouse scoots the floor
(I try to **** it with the door,
never fast enough, or
fling a haphazard shoe ...
always too slow too)
in the strangest zig-zaggedy fashion
absurdly inconvenient for mashin’,
till our hearts, each maniacally revvin’,
make us both early candidates for heaven.



Ding **** ...
by Michael R. Burch

for Fliss

An impertinent bit of sunlight
defeated a goddess, NIGHT.
Hooray!, cried the clover,
Her reign is over!
But she certainly gave us a fright!



Be very careful what you pray for!
by Michael R. Burch

Now that his T’s been depleted
the Saint is upset, feeling cheated.
His once-fiery lust?
Just a chemical bust:
no “devil” cast out or defeated.



The Flu Fly Flew
by Michael R. Burch

A fly with the flu foully flew
up my nose—thought I’d die—had to sue!
Was the small villain fined?
An abrupt judge declined
my case, since I’d “failed to achoo!”



Hell-Bound Hounds
by Michael R. Burch

We have five dogs and every one’s a sinner!
I swear it’s true—they’ll steal each other’s dinner!

They’ll **** before they’re married. That’s unlawful!
They’ll even ***** in public. Eek, so awful!

And when it’s time for treats (don’t gasp!), they’ll beg!
They have no pride! They’ll even **** your leg!

Our oldest Yorkie murdered dear, sweet Olive,
our helpless hamster! None will go to college

or work to pay their room and board, or vets!
When the Devil says, “*** here!” they all yip, “Let’s!”

And yet they’re sweet and loyal, so I doubt
the Lord will dump them in hell’s dark redoubt . . .

which means there’s hope for you, perhaps for me.
But as for cats? I say, “Best wait and see.”


Menu Venue
by Michael R. Burch

At the passing of the shark
the dolphins cried Hark!;

cute cuttlefish sighed, Gee
there will be a serener sea
to its utmost periphery!;

the dogfish barked,
so joyously!;

pink porpoises piped Whee!
excitedly,
delightedly.

But ...

Will there be as much glee
when there’s no you and me?


Anti-Vegan Manifesto
by Michael R. Burch

Let us
avoid lettuce,
sincerely,
and also celery!


Rising Fall
by Michael R. Burch

after Keats

Seasons of mellow fruitfulness
collect at last into mist
some brisk wind will dismiss ...

Where, indeed, are the showers of April?
Where, indeed, the bright flowers of May?
But feel no dismay ...

It’s time to make hay!

I believe the closing line was influenced by this remark J. R. R. Tolkien made about the inspiration for his plucky hobbits: “I've always been impressed that we're here surviving because of the indomitable courage of quite small people against impossible odds: jungles, volcanoes, wild beasts ... they struggle on, almost blindly in a way.” Thus, whatever our apprehensions about the coming winter, when autumn falls and fall rises, it’s time to make hay.


How It Goes, Or Doesn’t
by Michael R. Burch

My face is getting craggier.
My pants are getting saggier.
My ear-hair’s getting shaggier.
My wife is getting naggier.
I’m getting old!

My memory’s plumb awful.
My eyesight is unlawful.
I eschew a tofu waffle.
My wife’s an Eiffel eyeful.
I’m getting old!

My temperature is colder.
My molars need more solder.
Soon I’ll need a boulder-holder.
My wife seized up. Unfold her!
I’m getting old!



A More Likely Plot for “Romeo and Juliet”
by Michael R. Burch

Wont to croon
by the light of the moon
on a rickety ladder,
mad as a hatter,
Romeo crashed to the earth in a swoon,
broke his leg,
had to beg,
repented of falling in love too soon.

A nurse, averse
to his seductive verse,
aware of his madness
and familial badness,
searched for the stiletto in her purse.

Meanwhile, Juliet
began to fret
that the roguish poet
(wouldn’t you know it?)
had pledged his “love” because of a bet!

A gang of young thugs
and loutish lugs
had their faces engraved on “wanted” mugs.
They were doomed to fail,
ended up in jail,
became young fascists and cried “Sieg Heil!”

No tickets were sold,
no tickets were bought,
because, in the end, it all came to naught.

Exeunt stage left.



Apologies to España
by Michael R. Burch

the reign
in Trump’s brain
falls mainly as mansplain



No Star
by Michael R. Burch

Trump, you're no "star."
Putin made you an American Czar.
Now, if we continue down this dark path you've chosen,
pretty soon we'll be wearing lederhosen.


tRUMP is the **** of many jokes.—Michael R. Burch



Doggerel about Dogs

Dog Daze
by Michael R. Burch

Sweet Oz is a soulful snuggler;
he really is one of the best.
Sometimes in bed
he snuggles my head,
though he mostly just plops on my chest.

I think Oz was made to love
from the first ray of light to the dark,
but his great love for me
is exceeded (oh gee!)
by his Truly Great Passion: to Bark.



Oz is the Boss!
by Michael R. Burch

Oz is the boss!
Because? Because ...
Because of the wonderful things he does!

He barks like a tyrant
for treats and a hydrant;
his voice far more regal
than mere greyhound or beagle;
his serfs must obey him
or his yipping will slay them!

Oz is the boss!
Because? Because ...
Because of the wonderful things he does!



Excoriation of a Treat Slave
by Michael R. Burch

I am his Highness’s dog at Kew.
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
―Alexander Pope

We practice our fierce Yapping,
for when the treat slaves come
they’ll grant Us our desire.
(They really are that dumb!)

They’ll never catch Us napping―
our Ears pricked, keen and sharp.
When they step into Our parlor,
We’ll leap awake, and Bark.

But one is rather doltish;
he doesn’t understand
the meaning of Our savage,
imperial, wild Command.

The others are quite docile
and bow to Us on cue.
We think the dull one wrote a poem
about some Dog from Kew

who never grasped Our secret,
whose mind stayed think, and dark.
It’s a question of obedience
conveyed by a Lordly Bark.

But as for playing fetch,
well, that’s another matter.
We think the dullard’s also
as mad as any hatter

and doesn’t grasp his duty
to fling Us slobbery *****
which We’d return to him, mincingly,
here in Our royal halls.



Bed Head, or, the Ballad of
Beth and her Fur Babies
by Michael R. Burch

When Beth and her babies
prepare for “good night”
sweet rituals of kisses
and cuddles commence.

First Wickett, the eldest,
whose mane has grown light
with the wisdom of age
and advanced senescence
is tucked in, “just right.”

Then Mary, the mother,
is smothered with kisses
in a way that befits
such an angelic missus.

Then Melody, lambkin,
and sweet, soulful Oz
and cute, clever Xander
all clap their clipped paws
and follow sweet Beth
to their high nightly roost
where they’ll sleep on her head
(or, perhaps, her caboose).

Keywords/Tags: doggerel, nonsense, light verse, light poetry, humor, silliness, limerick, jingle, jangle, mrbepi

Everyday the weather tastes like Amusement Park,
drinking a glass of milk right after brushing my teeth
reflects nice pop art, worthy of being hung on an imaginary wall!
she loves me
she loves me not
she loves me
she will riot,
surely!
I can already hear the fire.                 Where in the world is she now?
Making angels in the Moroccan sand or... (well that's just it, if I had any idea I'd tell you)
                                      "I hear she lives in a big heritage home!
                                       struck thirteen various colors, making
                                       paintings with her heart!"

                                      "No, no.. you got it all wrong! She's
                                       chewing on crayons and spitting out
                                       watermarks! Something to do with art, tho
                                       she was always fond of that stuff"

I'm walking past a bygone stucco house with a bold red sign plastered on the backyard entrance gate, it says
"BEWARE OF DOG"          across the street, a woman walks her Yorkie
                                               n' I laugh to myself.

Everything feels like icecream cones
or romance movies, I don't know.
All this traffic is flashier in the sunshine,
the leaves on trees are glossy, just like Indonesia!
(I miss it still)
Mailboxes have sudden whales on them, decorated with the ocean
or seashells or bikes leaned on an ivory fence          and something
as simple as a song can take you to a hot place where you can get away with wearing anything!
Maybe an exotic hat..

People always asking me, first thing they say
"Oh oh oh where is she now??"
your guess is as good as mine
I'm not gonna go looking she doesn't
want to be FOUND see
that ruins the whole point..
                 and really when I think about it
                 all of us are slowly disappearing

These are the days of bus stops without needing a coat, journal entries I find impossible to decipher in the months past when they were written,
                 souvenirs and misplaced phone numbers..
                 slowly evaporating to time
                 +  the sacred cross-continental.
Days of leaving my umbrella behind
to hang on the dusty closet handle,
yellow fading out,
that too, bygone.

Donovan's "Ferris Wheel" resonating thru my bedroom backdrop

                           "A silver bicycle you shall ride
                      To bathe your mind in the quiet tide"  

The bicycle comes closer by the day/
catching the heat of nearby July/
reflecting my decisions on it's mercury surface/

Somehow, my naive midnight Tofino phonecall to an
eyeless air been answered here,
in a different way than I expected
but no less appreciated.
Thank you.

words
words
words
big or small, odd or ordinary
how many do you know
made of one or several letters
you can put them in a row

to make a question or a thought
asking, telling as a sentence ought

words
words
words
come in many forms
lots of vowels
or just one or two
a, e, i, o, or u

words
words
words
keeping track of how much they're used
every year they add a few
like this year's embiggen and mansplain
dumpster fire came along too

wanderworts, bandwidth, kambucha
schnoodle, chiweenie, yorkie-poo
cryptocurrency, bitcoin and welp
hate-watch, subtweet, glamping, too

here's my favorite of the eight hundred fifty -
not to make too much of a fuss -
but wordie's a great add to the dictionary
feels like it was put in just for us

LOST IN FRANCE

In the distance
a dog throws its voice

so it seems
the trees are barking.

Sun and shadow
playing tag

between rows and rows
of trees.

France is made of
landscape and light.

I feel as if I am
walking in a painting

that is wet yet.

I nothing but
a mobile little smudge.

I drink in the light
as if my soul thirsted for it.

Now a yellow day
leaves its post

to chase me half way
down its road.

Now a Yorkie
guards the crossroads.

Here a sheepdog
silently trails me

until it has successfully
seen me off its turf.

I smile sheepishly.

I, lost and found
all at the one time.

Finally the road turns and
the village runs out to meet me.

I, now only lost
in wonder.

i still managed to catch a whiff of britpop...
i was going to st. augustine's
and all the boys were all about the oasis
look... so ben sherman shirts...
          never tucked into the trousers...

but this was in the 1990s...
             of course the celebrations were short-lived...
sooner or later a prog variation of brit-pop
had to come about with radiohead...

i kind of skimmed over the early stuff...
there, there - from hail to the thief is my stand-out
track...

having just watched a movie about
the iceman... a one ryszard kuklinski -
well... if the icecream truck:
mongrel dutch-irish and this one ******
would never make into the guinea club...
or the elder fathers of zion...
guinea? seems i was misinformed...
rome's best wops... or donatello goombah...

i'm having trouble with all these
anglo-saxons slurs...
     back in dandy ol' england...
             it's not a great period piece:
happening right now...
to be in the protected class of citizentry:
no mosque... oh hell:
protected status with a falafel?
exactly... where's the falafel?

             but from the movie... wow...
it is: but it isn't... a racial slar...
the one word from skiing these oomp'ah-
loomp'ahs *** 'ight...
                        
and in mewwy ol' england i come across
the natives... almost for a second time...
not the same sort of natives
i met prior to my 1997 / 1998 interlude...

perhaps 7/7 happened?
                      i really don't know...
                  but no great cultural export...
no oasis was sang on the continent
after oasis songs were sung...
it's not like kasabian made it into that
transcendental meaning on offer...
    
      hey! variations: pollack!
   paul-lack! st. paul's lacking? what?
a head... in athens... ah ha... dry martini of
a joke...
    but who am i?
        profession? pole / paul...
       ******* in my spare time, jackson jr.,
because... it's hardly a slur...
it would be a slur if i were called
a *** or a goombah...
the anglo-saxons wouldn't exactly
the rooted natives...
but they would...
it's as if expected:
from speaking latin and the eagle-fetish
to brewing cappuccinos...

a dutch-irish... well a dumb pollack joke...
yes... and now that the virus is caughing
via the retards in the supermarket isles
or licking ice-cream / toilet rims...
i guess an honest workforce is...
something to be less ashamed of...
compared to this ****** nation of:
the readily to be exile puke of reason...
"of their own"...

               i seem to have elevated my...
concern for words...
     i have just started to read my Charles Dickens...
and relying on Monday
to eat a more delightful roast dinner:
i says... it taste better... because it's not
a Sunday... it's a Monday...
plus... the roast is not exactly a roast...
it has some elements of bleau at the center...
because... you can't expect three
people to eat that much meat in a single sitting:
given the recipe for those yorkies from
ol' grandma of a james martin...

100g of flours, 4 eggs... circa 200ml of milk...
salt, pepper...
the dough is left in the fridge for an hour
at least... the yorkie trays are put into the oven
at 220C with the oil...
while the tatties are browning and the beef
is readying itself for the abstract
of my mouth... and the cubism of my ***...
pristine squeeze...

        if only in h'america...
            what wouldn't a norman davies call
the polacks if not industrial albino (s)*******?
then who were or would be... eire-
just -ish?
                         but the new continent:
i'm toppling down into the torso of a well-off
snowman built from an avalanche...

if there were britons here prior...
which includes the welsh and the scots...
and those people of Shropshire...
and those botanical tsars of Kent...
whoever these people are...
the noble barbarians...
   the better of vikings with no fjords
to revel in farming on?
   maybe those kind of people...
that sort of the native...
oh god forbid i should entice the cosmopolitan
brood to enter the debate...
not in the heart of the matter: come york
and its shire...
                      some longshank hobbit might
just pop its head up to high and kiss
a guillotine!

if there were the anglo-saxons...
    eh... some of us came... settled...
we wanted to... find... the englishman...
circa... 1860 - 1950... that sort of timeframe...
i guess we finds him...
question is... czy ja jestem, lecz czy on?
that's a good question...
is he the host and i the parasite...
well... funny that...
he isn't a body...
                       he's an oak that was uprooted
from somewhere among a many many
pines and birches in the eastern provinces
of this continent...
and moved... into a garden...
lurking: shadow... hunched crow
and some other hideous comparison...

am i the parasite? what host of a mind i did
acquire: who's me...
or i am him... then i'll drift into the other
trench and i'll tell the germans
that they're fighting anglican saxons...
what? yes i'll tell them...
they're not lutheran saxons...
they're anglican saxons...

              how? they have a monarchy...
a crown, central...
no petty princes bound to a federation...
i have also some across the modern natives...
the alt-right and the ethno-nationalists...
apparently: i'm not in the club...
how could i be...
i overheard them talking about...
electing a monarch...
election of monarchy...
    well... no point investing in the gene pool...
last time that was tried...
was in the guise of the polish-lithuanian
commonwealth...
the brothel of kings...
some were hungarians, some were "germans"...
some were even swedes...
the aristocracy elected a king...
a john lackland sorts from across europe...
until their big brother richard
or some variant of Otto or the proper didlo in
hand charles gustav would...
appear to wrestle with his baby brother's:
"betrothal" - evidently thart's one for the misnomer
and inversion...

the anglo-saxons as they were to be later known
as... no point beating about the bush...
but... i have measured myself against
these other inhabitants...
the welsh, the scots, the irish... and... well...
i'm not here on part of a conquering army...
my fellow countrymen are just about overwhelmed
by enjoying 100 years of privy
and freedom... little much of good will that do them...
a half-bred popular opinion:

that i hide my language in the freedom
i allow myself within english...
i'm here for the Dickens and the sunday roast beef:
and the yorkies... and the haggis and the neeps,
the mashed and roasted tatties...
and the black pud'...
            i'm not here to see how far west my ***
will point while bowing toward mecca...
if you don't mind me saying...
like i am not here for that kippah u.f.o.
ghetto of Golders Green...

                    i'm not here for a Marx on loan...
i'm here for a... "hashtag"...
   eh... the saxons have their unifying:
nomadic perspective to mind...
it's not like the saxons were not liked by...
say... the pomeranians...
   or the swabians... or the brandenburgers...
the saxons: semites of the north...
pseudo-vikings wishing for the proto- prefix...
well... are the modern saxons...
saxons? the saxons ****** off to england...
later ****** off to build the british empire...
i'm sure... the modern "saxons" are just
that... brandenburgers... some swabians...
the germans that stayed and were the enemy
under kaiser wilhelm...
that great... grandson of queen victoria...

yes... that war wasn't the war to stop all lineage
in-breeding... because...
it would take whittle adoolf the failed
art student to wake up the petty-bourgeoisie...
fully donned in khaki...
  and in hugo boss schwarz...
               and in... gulag grey-leash... of the wehrmacht:
of course...

    but anglo-saxons are, and were...
and there's this... grand ethno-etymology...
         listening to the natives...
   codes: white-genocide... ethnic displacement...
let me run back and check the state of affairs
in mother russia and ******-land...
polonia (in latin)... oh right...
i just heard... that a woman in russia...
university educated, a doctor, no less...
also believes that churches should be exempt from
restrictions on social gatherings...
because they are holy places...
and... viruses... in their primitive square / rectangular
modes of abstracting vectors...
or de-abstracting for a better cushion
of solid ground made... also have...
a sense of a higher-beings modus operandi
when plagued with doubt, or denial...
the virus knows what's scared to the russians...
too bad for all those russian buddhists...

dunno... what european are the westerners
worried about?
                         i'm here on "holiday"...
to read my Dickens: finally! it only took me
20 odd ******* years...
and my sunday roast on a monday...
   if there came a wave of anglo-saxons...
while the pomeranians stayed strapped
to the holy german empire "thing"...
and because there weren't any anglo-bohemias...
or modern anglo-czechs...

i'll branch out anyways...
                to the "greater" picture masquarade...
i'll be an anglo-slav if...
     and... oh look! they're here already...
i'm an anglo-slav... among the other minority
of the afro-saxons...
            
after all... there are tiers to migration...
there's that tier of polacks moving with the government
during the "affair" of circa 1943...
the no. 303 boys...
    and... after that? no one from ******-land
wanted to come to britain... h'america...
the golden retreiver...
               given the cold war... de facto:
to the antonym of the mensa harvest...

i came in the 1990s...
******-land and the other 8... joined the already
failing european union in 2004...
hmm...
          well... you did get that cabbage plucked...
that carrot too...
from... the sort of people without tic-toc
who... would rather **** braincells with a *****
after a god's monstrous maxim...
while i started sweating from my armpits
hunched with these words...
enough of braincells to ****...
not enough imaginative in a quasi-vivo state
of... the cannibal narcissus...
attention spans a week's worth of
goldfish adventures... licking ice-cream
you won't buy...

                            then again: a lacking paul...
is an otherwise over-eager pauline...

even if "we" were to become fully "integrated"...
like hell i was giving my mother tongue up
after that 1997 /1998 interlude...
i still wouldn't be able to teach my father the english
they speak: peppered with nuance from
the old mother grammar...
too bad... but the pronunciation is spot on...
i don't know why i should feel obliged to
the ******* on the cross to feel "circumcised"
for... his labyrinth...
      i couldn't teach my father better english
than the english already spoken: among the natives,
for the natives...
at home... mother is the cue... tongue
and everything otherwise...

we'll sample with the natives their delight in
minority cuisines...
but come monday... esp. a monday...
after a lunchbox worth of food of a sunday
feeling lazy... well... it just tastes better when
it's not... predicated on a riposte of...
conventions and harangue of: past-participle
expectations...

that sentence is littered with misnomers...
to add to the... otherwise... bland... talk...
correct... talk...

                   but i really couldn't teach my father
better english...
i have made this language sacred in my own
right as... both parasite and host...
interchangeable... of course...
eh... master and slave dynamic doesn't really
get me all hot and bothered...
i much prefer the lessened hiararchical nuance...
the co-dependency the symbiosis...
of a parasite and a host...
after all... it would seem the head of the pyramid
is a... fungus infection of the brain...
or at worst... a placenta martriarch of
a family of tapeforms: where, otherwise...
a foetus should be...

                i'm not into boot-licking...
but... if the anglo-saxons used these isles
as a spring-board to forever imitate the children
of zion...
i'm just the leftovers...
           the anglo-slav among afro-saxons...
the "great replacement"...
  woe'woe'woe... and that's a word that
should devolve into a calm down / halt insinuation...

who came after 2004... the people who didn't see loopholes
and wouldn't be seen gambling...
the sort of people that would most certainly
go back to the ***** and: the law & justice party
embrace...
   the xenophobic extracts of:
                        the impossibilty of the red sea
parting story... since they would never be the ones
there...
              that grey area...
like i am a grey area to them...
given... how many times did i want to spend
a summer at the ****** version of Woodstock...
Pol'and'Rock at Kustrin?
         lack hell i am...
   i'm confined to my little abode of folklore
anglo-saxony...
             rather: not having played the boogie man
from an 1960s period piece of:
vaginal and viagral expectations...
or... that thing known as brit-pop in the 1990s...
or... i've passed through york...
on my way to edinburgh...
           but yorkshire... beside the yorkies...
spuds? they call them?

         maybe... i'm counting 7 x 5cl to leverage
me at half a 70cl... but... looking at
what 35cl looks like turned into dosage...
i'm seeing more... than half an empty bottle...
i'm seeing the bottle as half full...
i guess this "predicament" came from
alcoholic slang and... positivism...
it's hardly optimistic... given... it's only
a perspective on only one bottle...
and there's still that sea to drink!

                      well... that's that... it was a most
enthralling ride back toward a square-root of 0...
much appreciated...
       now i'll just turn to the bed and the cushion
my head rests on...
and tell myself:
           this person was never born...
nor will his words take to boast about...
          a nativity play...
                 nor a pride in Shakespeare...
       it's one thing's worth a good reading...
quiet another... to treat it as an enzyme for
the collective: a catalyst...
to "re-invent" the wheel... as it were...
i have given birth... to perhaps...
the greatest thing i could "steal"...
         then again... i am very much...
                         exaggerating...
  but this was not born from the ****** ethnicity
of some european island folk...
  it was born on the continent...
   and it was somehow lived in and with...
never allowed to exfoliate into a courtesan...
annoyance... i gave it a limbo cage
both the host and parasite could enjoy...
after all: this language is a parasite...
i acquired when integrating...
    i am the host...
the parasite can dictate what it wants...
a blank page to exfoliate a boquet(t)e with / in...

it would most certainly appear more
orthographically sound: if boquete had an added T...
well... some will cite Shakespeare the first of and
the end of... what's defined as Ęglish...
i like to think of the... "subtle" master...
     i somehow knew it was in him...
after watching the film-adaptations... not good enough...
not having read David Copperfield...
a brush with J. D. Salinger and all that
holden caulfield Son-of-Sam sort of crap...

             i guess you just have to age a little...
a little is never greedy... and pounce on that great
big peacock playing: the pink elephant in the room!
that's me... Dickens wasn't impossible
to "unsee" or "not see"...
                                  i just needed...
the right sort of hashbrown sort of nudge...
enough organic encounters with yorkies...
baked tatties... h.p. brown sauce and enough baked
beans...
  yep... now i'm ready...
                  it's time to gently slide away from
Macbeth... and into Dickensian prose...
the Pickwick Papers is as any good place to start...
all the better: since it came highly
recommended why i was still in high-school...
all those... ****... 18 years later.

She caught
you fair and
Square
The never_
((Singlehanded))
(Jingle ****-pit landed)

The napkin
crossed legs
Married
her favorite drinks

((Uncrossed or divorced))
Bachelorette
Never drink
and ride her
Corvette

50 unlisted shades
green drinks
Spiked
Too envy_*
Personality can win
One *** single
Emmy
So Cool and collected
He's so hot saturated

Her College Humor
Mom got ulcers
Such a bust of
tumors

Bring on the
Buzz Feed
Amazingly enough
Drinks are our
Drug need

Single she had ti
Married to regret it
Amaretto  went
Solo
Card game
Played upon like the
City Ghetto
In your mouth
Smirnoff__Off the record
The turn-off
He tried to win her
Such Sweet nuts
The olives Italian
Hey Juice horse
Stallion
The
Gala Ha

Ha baba
Shrimp and sheep
Pretzels lime twist
This is NY
we never sleep
Dogs Yen of Yorkie
Liqueur lime
his crime
Gala Forgie
Quicker and
City slicker
One drink
to pick Fergie

Big Daiquiri
Hot stuff singer
Never a
solitaire game
He got stiff
Frangelico
Of the Pinnacle
The ***** Princess
Lost her dress
Playing Russian
Roulette
Magically Mike
Came all over
Collette imaginable

His drink was
the hottest rated

Never by one
Bad drink
Sip to your drinks
Gala party tricks

My family and I just started our after dinner walk on Mother’s day.
All smiles, strolling along our paved road that leads home.
As we were halfway near the highway, telling jokes and giggling over our bloatedness.
I look down to notice our dog panting and barking off into the distance.
Nothing was there. Dogs barking was not something I usually take too much mind to.
We own 3 dogs; Lucy is a male pitbull, Linda is a male yorkie, and Mindy is a female pug.
They all came with us on our walk. Usually they roam free, but today they stuck near.
That didn’t seem to be unusual.

We talk about how everyone is doing and what exactly everyone is up to.
Basically getting caught up since I usually don’t visit often, as i stay with my partner.

All three DOGS walked off into the distance, on there way back. Most likely tired.

All of a sudden my heart skips, my ears pop
increasingly loud ringing..
Confused, I start to panic. Everything seems fine. I can't hear anything.

I look around, finally noticing that my family was gone.
I finger my ears repeatedly. The sun is going down.

Nothing seems to be around, no cars passing, houses in the distance seemingly vacant but cars are parked in front and everybody is most likely inside.
I shrug whatever happened off, I make my way back home. Ears still deaf.

The driveway to my house seemed about a football field away. Every step was disorienting. I could not hear anything, still.
I apparently took an awkward step unknowingly. spraining my ankle and falling into a bush of stickers (this is New Mexico so that’s not uncommon.) It’s dark now. The closest amount of light is coming from my house.
I am yet to be able to hear anything.

The house less than 600 feet away. I yell for help. I can’t hear myself yelling but I know I am. The house has a big window that’s radiating light in my direction. It makes sense that my screaming would get attention. Nothing happens.
Shadows appeared looking out from the window. Feeling a sense of relief, I scream again. Expecting them to take notice, they don’t. They actually stay where they are.
All I can see is familiar silhouettes.

Still screaming, now waving my hands in the air and crying. I still don’t hear anything.
My throat feels as if it were bleeding.
Feeling very helpless and scared.
The silhouettes remain where they were. Frustrated, crying, tired, and in pain.
I close my eyes and throw my head back ..
into black
Like sleep

I wake in the beginning

Just when life most grand
Death saying, "Now, I almost
Forgot about you"

This was prompted today by a tiny (one and a half pound), cute Yorkie puppy named Chance.  He came in to the EC after being sick at home with vomiting and diarrhea.  He was collapsed, nearly unconscious, ghostly pale, blood glucose of 28 mg/dl, scratching at death's edge.  We stuck catheter in bone and we brought him back.  He was doing well through the long night, jumping up to greet me, wagging his tail.  Just as I was ready to go home, off my shift, he cried out a big whimper, and fell over dead.  We tried to revive him, to bring life again, however, same as any of us, death had it's last say!

©  2017 Jim Davis

how unfathomable to be unable to listen
to new music...
              i sit and want to rearrange
bob kaufman's poem
  o-jazz-o war memoir: jazz...

      samsung + google chrome
doesn't like bitchute...
   i have been unable to watch a video
of weeks...

lenovo + google chrome
doesn't mind bitchute...
         well... it's not terribly important...
i have installed pale moon
but i'm being terrible lazy
and... i'd only invest in a VPN
to get masterchef australia (.au)
                     recipes...
                  i can mash up: punk
a steam-roller forward...
   it's not necessary...

but i will not rearrange that bob kaufman
poem...
           a little bit of rereading
the brautigan sonnets...
honest to god:
   when knausgård finally came...
i was relieved from having
to shove my eyes my tongue
my brain my: casually automaton
not-thinking
    away from american poetics...

i aspire to return to:
the i, maximus poems...
         because i've been a good boy
and i didn't visit the brothel
because even at 34...
well... you just tire of ***
because so many others seem
to have progressed to the higher
acts... protagonists in b.d.s.m.
role-playing... candy-torture...
something? opaque?

the book is dear... nearing 40 quid a pop...
i will only make
peace with american poetry on
the promise of reading the maximus oeuvre
(i have to insert the name,
like a junction - delight in calling
it the M25 around the home counties -
the bloated A406 teasing Ilford:
orson... ****... not welles...
charles olson!)

    acronyms in the vocab or...
dropping names... voluntary work...
departed and death's hyphenation:
assured - by - a designated project...
it's not a thought-out complexity...
it... either rains... or it shines...
it's either a night with a lonely
dog barking... or... it's a silent night...
perhaps a cricket... or some far away
cushion of traffic monotone humming:

like a refrigerator: the avant garde
of music: white noise...
but always the welcome wind...
either the earth's yawn...
  or the cavern solid depth of ****...
which is... not the passing of wind:
but... luck... in a more... eastern tongue...
teasing the geography of
little moscow i.e.: minsk...

well of course nothing spectacular
is happening...
beside reading a newspaper in
the morning... a few essays in the afternoon...
sitting and contemplating:
a platonism of homosexuality...
at home... teased by genitals...
as from an early age...
when a foreign body fiddled with
my possessions... a toy...
but now... a 60 year old craftsman...
perfectionist...
   a plumber but most necessarily: irish...

what's in english TH and in greek Θ
is also F            and also: alTHough...
                                   is also THat
             is also THorough...
is a surd isn't a surd...
          is -gh deaf...
                                   etc.
          irish? well... t'ought...
                                   t'is...
                  t'ou(gh)t...
                       target tatties: bomb-zickle-bomb-zarch...

such a loaded word: ****-eroticism and
platonism:  bias for commeradry
because there's a higher tier
of friends with "benefits"

          it's a terrible tango this very tease
of greasing a gauge:
time flows through the impersonal squadron
of perchance...
      
as ever: there comes a moment of
completing disbelief:
       in what makes one churn
the advent of the democratic voice...
put simply: i don't believe what i'm writing...
nietzsche is forever only a teenager
fanboy...
          how anyone could get away with
that sort of: sorrow of my own
inability to loot a blank...

                 if this was written
with a conviction in fwench or spanish...
a distant russian...
but it's only a tourist english of some
****** immigrant...
             i should somehow will myself
to write in mutterzuerst:
             zunge von tod... a chicago glamour
glistening in my mind...
h'america can capsize and retain its
20th century's mythological "geography"...
  and "history"...

i don't think the eyes would be of any use
when seeing anything anything more
than the letters and later the words
and later the sentences of noting
the hebrew junction...
         i'd like the literal fetish...
because a literal reading would allow me
to focus on dreaming up the impossible...
not reading the ol' bib'complica-ca'tion
into a poetry exhaustion of:
metaphor and the philosopher's stone...

the guitar lick of sowing the solo...
invitation to giving diacritical stressors...
whereby rhythm is noun...
whereby rhythm is sentence: judge jury
and executioner...
    
to drink! it's all about drinking and not
******* your pants...
it's about the mea culpa and
shooting yourself in the foot... or not...
i'd love to make william burrough's narrative
into a ******...
although i much disagree to
the detail of the life behind the sacred
pax of jeez and juicy juicy dorothy...

lullaby or an alibi...
       lullaby or an alibi... much contested:
of the satellites of the soviet
picturesque: because there's only
genius to work with around
the culmination of events...
for all that's recurrent of the 20th counting
nil and the flowering feud of
the "most"...

                  such a pressure to
somehow find some variation of "anew"...
for the best in poetry... the h'americans
siding with...
the iron curtain and now the silicon
curtain and the lessened tensions
of a: would-be-bomb...

            mr. clear stick figure of:
the oppenheimer...
        who was hardly a pope or a bishop
and there was never a reconquista
of such loot...
   but this current inversion
               of pennies from niqab:
and there could only be an unfathomable
triad - snot, phlegm and salt...
i find myself suffocating to
transcend while the metaphysical
ogling of an oasis...
contesting with sardines...
an antithesis claustrophobia...

               borrowing scent and the pristine
mini-skid-alongs of
churning umbrellas into skirts...
and all those cliches:
best to forget the existence
of the mind... better to reflect...
on the banjo and some walter skinz:
   or... herr im schwarz...
that best ******* of a german
forgotten "soon" with no inclined
to a borrowing of a son...

had i written the most spectacular freefall
bonanza... lucifer loots out
all other useful nouns on the dole...
there must be a boa architect and a
familiarisation with choking
on a peanut...

               best pleasing a hinterland of:
impromptu...
these khaki shoes these khaki shirts...
these mustard green trousers...

             it's impossible to write when one
is still a s schoolboy with a robert pinksky
attention to detail:
pauper... european...
the myth of and if... someone should
keep a calendar denying the sun...
that the moon can also shape itself
toward a frigid

that there's a mongol and he's
not a chinese or a thai or a japanese
culinary invitation...
that i somehow have to tattoo my mind
with such details...
because my skin is best sacred
by not being "scarred" by idiosyncratic
details of SE664397B...

the currency of youth in england
is still composed of a "memory" of Hastings...
such an inglorious battle...
given the norman archers...
and the tumbleweed of flesh of the saxon
protectorate desiring a towing
of a downward ***** of:
the confessor's epiphany...

  dear edward dear little england...
prior to ambitions of empire...
and that zenith...
dickens... jack the ripper...
jester jane... mr hyde...
   it's like... shakespeare is no necessary
rubric: 2 + 2 = 4 new yorker
sauvage...
                              
it's such a currency of suffocation
to have to tow... a height...
the variation of stink....
               a broken bone...
squeezing a delight...
             a marrow juicing of a rattling of
bone...
       procreative on the strategy
of instigating chimes:
variations of skinning wind teasing...
        
my my... it all looks just as plentiful and
as about right... as the currency
invested in a slavic discoteque...

            slaves the partner to
the germs; on high minded peoples
are the hybrids of a sa xony:
modulated to an export..
and an island home...
                 riddle with a homage
to having encountered an ancient:
    "amore" and "psyche":
                       belittling this quest
for taming haggis afghanistan.

HAZE HER - an all female...
pretend... football league sq...
gets a happy sancho ****-virulence
of "hope"... stages a ****...
the group accepts the "nuance"...
the media subsequently deals with
the wound and some maggot...
festering...
i grieve for the 19th century romance...
when... and... where...
women could be adored...
rather than abhorred...
as these... butchers' off-cut sludge...
and slices...
these: me no toy not 'appy...
'appier in bangkok kwing...
   und a lesser queer...

       procrastinating over
fraternity videos...
            because... i am... a sadist...
but because this requires a sadism...
i also have to watch these videos
as a *******...
that famous plumber!
that famous... the "fiction" of fame...
as one... that assures one a permanent
check-mark of continued work...
it's not an Elvis fame...
it's not... rising **** of the new
yearning *****...
it's not a fraternity side-project of;
all are inclusive in...
a game of shame...

    i once enjoyed 1970s *****
cinema... monica rocccaforte style
italian flicks...
    ava lauren ***
         shyla stylez... follow through:
grown attires a ****** readied
exclusivity...
but... what i'm seeing?
that's just ******* base... crude...
juvenilia inc.
              a specctacle
of a suffocating sparrow:
to aid the progress of science...
like ego is the holier than thou
makeshift pilgrimage & pilgrim...
as the dust settles...

the scent of watermelon and of strawberries...
******* with sorority pledges is...
if one could... wish for...
the concept of *******...
and... the delight in teasing a glug
of an oyster... one would... always...
shy with a hope for...
an arabic sensibility...
but one never does...
       one always expects...
russians in afghanistan...
and a miracle of iran to counter...
the ottoman plebs...
given their byzantine inheritance... etc.

one of those impossible tasks
of jerking off while drunk...
with an impeding "hangover" of...
a... "delight"...
in how... ******* can feel...
synonymously akin to scalping /
extracting the *** from new yorkie...
the kippah from
a bar mitzvah...
         a pleasure from an agony...
a pair of eyes from a niqab toll
of *******...
a toothless:
      toothless bake relief...
       a nugget... a toothpick woo..
  watching agony ****
that's not italian 1970s classic...
it's not this belgian sour fetish...
it's this crude: women also play
soccer and toy with game-think...

           it was ****... whenever it wasn't...
and it wasn't... ever...
you can disguise a drunk with a *****
and a pair of *******...
but a drunk impregnate-
              sapphire: blue orb or:
orc stipend...
   which revels in turning chartreuse
into a moss ****** and...
itch...
           that's how i party...
a colour is beside a mere identifiable
word... it's also a sensation...
which... colour can muster...

******* of the sheiks' limbo...
what are these martyrs' promised?
can't they... "somehow" satisfy themselves
with what can already be given...
weißhuren: beruhigendzerbrechlich...

nein mehr meine mutter:
        tod die mutter von alles!

what are these presumptions these assumptions
these decadent dubai posits of camel jockey bribes?!
******* indolent question...
cold warsaw slab.... the farao island "gills"...


festmahl von freur!
                    hören der wind!
conceive a flemish inquiry with
anatomy to mind...
                     ich bitten die meer...
                             pflege für mich...
alt-mutter-meer...
              
                    schoß von und walfisch!
a bangladeshi will cite:
camel jockey and sand-******...

white *******...
      i don't have the heart...
to juice on the hex...
                        
sport akin to *** is for the "uglies"...
as a man... unfathomable...
because "******"...
and the "inconvenience" of
baking... leotard game of gym / ballet...
covert homosexuality...
the whole biological female... ***...
orientation... bypass... wizard of oz...
no thanks... menopause...
new age ******-sadism...
the next earned puppy...
ms. is not a mrs. bovary...
my ******* grandma...
              i'm not gay... just covert...
              sorority ***** vids...
and... auschwitz maiden voyage *** teasers!

like... ich wantz...
         i wollen: ein schälen...
       all remains a chemistry in german...
all is an anatomy in: pennywise
the wicked... puff... and curious candy...

candy kept cain perfect
of h'american'ah...
like some abilist abel... ****-somewhat-"wit"...
no...
no glue for a new, new...
it's the same old... salem witchy-witchy...
dutch lisp...
some better than before belgian congo...
the diamonds! the diamonds and cochccies!

we are weeds in the garden:
the shadows brood concerns first...
the glistening soft affairs
of village people having
to export themselves
to a grandiosity of lunatic stakes
in urban pointers of credulity and concreteness..
i want to call it the death
of a sparrow...
the annoying rebirth of a magpie...
the limbo of a gravitating
silver spoon as the best prized
mythos...

calls a substitute a mother-in-law...
some variation
of a pick-me-up
Beirut granny; boom para giggles
hint.

chem. soup brain... or Brian...
no song of no more new to come,
no new song of all that's to come,
no bride of either westminster
or wandsworth or walthamstow...
not within the confines
of the ****- burnings of the dolphin
skins of the yorkie-pies
of the ol' shire... coal-mined veins
from no, to no lesser Silesia...
among the Picts... dear widow
of London that's the current spirit
of lemon-suckling brine?!
oh my dear, what no aloof...
shying from the haggis, from the neeps!
the tatties!
and the myth of the deep frier
marzipan...
the fidget of the fudge explorers
of the Rhine of Yer **** Messieurs!
come to think of it...
i came to england as a fleabag of
eastern europe with a nietzschean moustashe
i borrowed and burrowed from and into
my father dear...
but when in SCOTland...
i arrived as a Dane...
this beyond past comparison arrival
willing to... **** a lass beside her senses
and her geography...
and in that... all was made sane...
because i see no reason to believe
these metropolitan daughters and sons
of fairies...
should they still exalt the ghost
of shakespeare...
and his art a mode of transcendence...
when all his works require!
actors!
the gob and goblet with my tongue
pickled in it like
the body of frederick barbarossa
arriving at Jerusalem...
London: the Salem of my Trials...
will ever and forver old Burns make
a speech: to later sigh...
because the English girls from Leicester
and Norwich arriving in Loon'don
will make it plain and far...
we from the foreign lands:
from the countrtyside will but and but
and but some more!
dear starlings pure... please! recite me some
of your love of Shakespeare:
as long as it rhymes... it's poetics;
ticks... those lesser tapeworms off...
here's a better terminology concerning
a cow-bell... roy orbison will never be allowed
to reign over the status of a black sabbath riff...
but...
he has the rest... nazareth and...
flea of the dog...
royal scots dragoons: this unison of
a non-continental aspect of land...
these isles...
and the english swans these english girls
will have to return,
cite their sonnets and never lend themselves
to "anecdotes" from the plays...
what did i say?
it is worth as much a misnomer
as it is worth a metaphor...
because for all of Shakespeare's worth...
he too would gladly rest,
his final sentiment via Bach's rolling technique...
should it be, when it is already well known...
no one recites a sonnet by a Shakespeare
when old Hogmanay is over...
when St. Sylvester's is celebrated...
and never this, very english... cold-ce
firecracker fore-warning the:
part and parcle of Guy Fawkes' night
of toy-terror...

what words and what words aren't...
and then those words better sung?
of never have,
of never heave...
of never baron over: of never "steve"
(stephen's claim and rite)...

so much for Shakespeare's sonnets...
when come new year's eve
and all that resounds...
is auld lang syne...
and all sing to embrace...
and none sign to what's...
nonetheless later sung...

was man ever to fathom being
so disillusioned to early...
to early as to catch a prosper from
the scent of thyme?
i can't stomach the recitations
of Shakespeare...
they sound to me like a clogged toilet...
i do not require a new recitation...
i require the proper reincarnation
plumber for this gobshite blockage
of what doesn't require to be ******* out:
re- again re- again re- again
and once more until another ted hughes
calls it: an "event at Wimbledon"...

**** it... yes... it was Primrose Hill...
unlucky for me... the Prussians never made it
into the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth...
nor was there a deluge to recount
on the canvas of a Bayeux Tapestry....
but sure as Sherlock ******* Holmes knows
his Watson...
cite and recite all the Shakespeare pedagogy
all you want...
the man would prefer rotten cabbages
to be thrown at the stage than having to endure
the immortality of a Bach...
esp. when... the words of a scotman are
sung come the eve of a new year's day...

by abide the Roud Folk Song Index...
this poo'em will too, not disappear as frequently
as the next to "new" viral video...

if only i wandered as far among
the Welsh... perhaps...
among the Richards of Little Ireland
and all the clever deargfriochta!

what's there to compensate with?
Southend... Colchester... Clapham Junction...
Prince Irvine of Clemence & Chelmsford...
epilogue of Epping -
as glutton Loon'don and...
fair well... bride Bethlem...

a song to not having parted...
a song to not heaved a last farewell...
a song for yesterday...
a song for: everyday!
a song for the domesticated dog...
and never the abides of a lost
leash that also calls itself a dog in horse-ridden
stirrups!
a song to bypass Leicester,
Doncaster, Newcastle, Carisle and...
the lesser domains of Hadrian's scare...
those BIG in domine dominos of history...

my putrid lot to have to remind...
it's not Shakespeare that's sung...
come the advent of anewed...
bubonic Edinburgh...
or how the first skyscrapers were born...
how the first bridges were raised
over no river or any manner
of a body of water...
how i came across my first
scottish "witch" and even if she was
the 2nd or 3rd Fiona...
i didn't fall in love with her...

old clinginess of a mythological Kiev...
somewhere between
Warsaw and Moscow...
yet again... it would have been
better that i return to the squalor of...
forget me to remember:
London 20th century 90s and 80s.

my neighbour has a dog it comes to visit me
comes in to my house climbs up on my knee
its a little yorkie as soft as soft can be
he just loves attention a loving dog is he

loves it when you stroke him his tail goes to and fro
stays with me a while then back home will go
he will be back tomorrow visit me once more
my faithful little friend that only lives next door