Hans
Hans was a sensitive guy
he didn’t have the armory
for solo polyamory
he wanted to marry
settle down
maybe do a bit of farmery
somewhere far away
from the clamor,
the goddamery
of big city life
Hans (Solo Polyamory)
1 Reply
Tag Archives: Humour
Tales from the Gym 3
Tales from the Gym 3
I believe in Gluteanasia
he says, with a casual air
we all groan
a miniature serpent wriggles across the locker room floor
and I’m thinking
Next up is the one about
Gluteus Maximus
the Roman governor.
but no, I’m wrong
I’m reading A Gentleman in Moscow, he says,
by Amor Towles.
Ahh more towels, he says
isn’t that what you say
when room service knocks
on your hotel room door.
and I’m thinking
he really should trim those toe nails.
Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.
A Tanka for Donald Trump
A Tanka for Donald Trump
morning has broken
Donald is talking bollocks,
the sun’s going down
Donald is talking bollocks,
sun comes up, yep, you guessed it.
This was originally titled ” A Tanka for Boris Johnson” but I realized that I could substitute any populist leader with a two syllable first name.
Poetic Ailments (There ain’t no Cure)
Poetic Ailments
irritable vowel syndrome
arrhythmia
pain in the assonance
acute enjambment
inflammation of the lower case
latinnittus
typographical dysfunction
fear of sonnets
halibunions
ghazalysis
grammaroids
rhymetism
pantoumia
pundruff
and last but not least:
celtic mysteria…
the irrational fear
on entering a room
that someone is going to recite
The Lake Isle of Inisfree
in a plummy, orotund
stage Irish accent.
This poem has been through a number of edits! Taking part in Open Link Night over at dverse.
Issue #21 Vapid Magazine (Where Shallow Runs Deep)
Yes, Vapid Magazine is back after a long hiatus (I had to look that up). These are vapid times and when the going gets vapid, the vapid get going! Here are some of the highlights from Issue #21.
Is Bot-ulism the end of AI?
Our tech correspondent , Jordan Shallowbyte discusses reports from China about outbreaks of bot-ulism in the robot population. Apparently robot paralysis is rampant. Yes, those robots are in a spot of bot-her. Local scientists are trying to get to the bot-tom of it. They think it may be linked to the ingestion of raw data.
In other tech news, Jordan asks: Are you a victim of Alcorithms ? There are rumors that there are rogue algorithms out there behaving like they have had a few pints over the limit. Yes, if Beethoven starts turning up on your country playlist it may be the work of one of those darn Alcorithms.
In Arts and Entertainment, the indefatigable Georgina Shallowglass asks:
Is Paw Patrol sponsored by the Fossil Fuel Industry?
Think about it, says Georgina, have you ever seen those pups take public transport? Have you ever seen them on a bike? No. Why? Because they each have their own personal motorized vehicle.
Skye has a helicopter for chrissakes.
No vehicle too big no pup too small ! Those pups rev like a canine biker gang. Yep, it’s a cartoon with a big carbon paw print. But help is on the way, Georgina reports that Netflix now offers carbon credits. You can offset that paw print by watching Peppa Pig .
In other entertainment news, Georgina reviews a new French cartoon about a dog called Prenez Le Piss. Prenez leads us on a tour of the lamp posts of Paris, one lamp post per episode. Apparently it’s a leg-raising experience!
Fascinating stuff, Georgina!
And lastly , Charlotte Shallowtrench, our Health and Fitness correspondent and self-styled Influencer Under the Influence discusses the OH Wellness movement. Apparently more and more people are waking up in the morning, looking in the mirror and saying: “Oh well, fuck all I can do about that” and just getting on with their day.
Also Charlotte asks: Are yoga teachers getting too preachy? Give me Downward Dog, she says, and less of that Downward Dogma!
Vapid Magazine: Home of all things Vapid!
For Vapid Magazine submission guidelines click here.
Okay! Who Said ‘Runcible”?
Runcible
The other day
I came across the word ‘runcible’
as in ‘runcible spoon’.
The word was invented by Edward Lear
as in ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’.
There is something risible about the word ‘runcible’
as in ‘laughter provoking’
which is different than ‘laughable’,
‘laughable’ has connotations of contempt
as in ‘derisible’ meaning ‘worthy of derision’,
‘derisible’ is almost an anagram of ‘desirable’
but back to ‘runcible’,
there is a great bounce, a great versatility to the word:
he walked out the morning after
humming a runcible tune
he had a runcible air about him
an odour that lingered
long after he had left the room.
the sun rose, red and runcible
in a diffident sky
Collective Nounsense
Collective Nounsense
A durante of toucans
A piety of soutanes
A woggle of scouts
A caveat of emptors
A torment of mentors
A loudness of louts
An agenda of schemers
A cumulus of dreamers
A Hamlet of doubts.
A gluttony of omnivores
A shylock of creditors
A flatulence of sprouts
I’m adding verses to this one at the rate of one very 2 years!
Donald Trump enters The Kingdom of Heaven
Luke 18:25 : “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”
Donald Trump enters The Kingdom of Heaven
This is how I’m going to do it, folks,
I’ll build a giant needle,
the biggest, shiniest, pointiest needle
that you have ever seen.
This needle will be so pointy, folks.
Then I’ll get a camel
from Egypt or somewhere like that.
Get the irony ,
me buying a camel.
See, I can do irony
I can be so ironic.
I’ll mount that camel
using my gold escalator,
and ride it
right through the eye of the needle
into the kingdom of heaven
and when I get there, folks,
when I get there
I’m going to make some changes.
Those angels…….
Sitting around on clouds playing harps
for eternity? Give me a break!
Eternity is a long time, folks,
eternity is the longest time….
anyway, where was I..right
those angels are gone, history, outta there
who needs them?
Then I’ll sit down with God
the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
well maybe not the Holy Ghost,
what is he anyway…a dove? A ghost?
That’s it folks no more Holy Ghost.
Gone, history, outta there.
Who needs him?
Another thing, folks
who’s actually in charge?
Is it the Father or the Son?
Has to be the Father,
can’t let your children run things.
So I’ll sit down with God the Father, folks
and together
we’ll make Heaven great again!
Taking part in Openlink over at dverse.
Thomas the Tanka Engine (Inane Tanka January #2)
Thomas the Tanka Engine
that little engine
sure could go and go and go
and go and go and….
yes, it’s all fun and games ‘til
you run out of syllables.
Sorry about that…I’m glad January is nearly over!
A Poem that references Jake Tapper (The Unbearable Lightness of Verse 3)
The Unbearable Lightness of Verse 3
he was a white rapper
she was a gift wrapper
at Crate and Barrel
they loved that whippersnapper, Jordan Klepper
and the affable, unflappable Jake Tapper
and yes he’s also dapper, that Jake Tapper.
Thought I revive this one, since I’ve started to watch CNN again..
The Ghost of Hangovers Past ( Christmas Blues)
The Ghost Of Hangovers Past
Your cell phone rings
but you’re not listening
because you left it
in The Fox and Vixen
behind the cistern
in the last stall on the left
next to the condom machine
and now it’s 4 am
your wife sleeps soundly beside you,
in the corner of the room
your hangover squats
sorting a tray of instruments.
It all began with a few beers,
some Christmas Cheer
so how did it get
from there to here?
Slowly you remember or think you remember….
Did you really poke your boss in the chest
and tell him that you know better
that you know best?
Did you really down three shots of scotch
grab Mark from marketing by the shoulders
and proclaim “I love you bro”
over and over ‘till he begged you to stop
to let go?
And why, why, why
did you call that shy Dutch girl from accounting
“sad-eyed lady of the lowlands”
again, over and over?
You groan inwardly
you groan outwardly
and just when you think
it could not get worse
your hangover stands up
and crosses the room
carrying what appears to be
a small mallet
Zooooosh,
he enters your head
and proceeds to knock on the inside of your skull
with that same mallet
all the time chanting this manic mantra
“deck the halls with human folly
Fa la la la la, la la la la”.
Four hours later your wife is shaking you
Up you get, she chimes
It’s time to do some Christmas shopping!
Joe Fresh opens at 9!
This poem turns up every Christmas, taking part in Christmas Blues over at Desperate Poets.
Jeb, the Lonesome Cowpoke
Jeb, the Lonesome Cowpoke
His parents called him “Jebedie”
short for “Jebediah”
he was never sure why,
“Jeb” suited him fine.
Jeb, the Lonesome Cowpoke
the stubble on his chin
could sand a fence post smooth
although he was never quite sure about “cowpoke”
there was an inference there
that he didn’t like
he would never get so lonesome that he would…
you know what I mean.
But sometimes
in his sleeping bag
by the dying embers of a campfire
listening to the lizards
chatting in their lizard tongues
and staring at the cacti
looking psychotic in the light of the desert moon
he would feel a tad lonesome
but then he’d think of Jean
the buxom proprietress of The Lost Pants Saloon
and the joke they always shared
when he arrived stale from the trail
“Hi Jean”, he’d say
“Hygiene”, she’d reply,
“you got a nerve
go take a bath
you smell like a coyote’s scrotum”
and Jeb would laugh
and head for the bath
at the same time wondering
how she knew what a coyote’s ….
but then he’d think
“don’t go there”
long before that phrase became popular.
After his bath Jeb would repair
(he liked those old timey words)
Jeb would repair to Jean’s four poster bed
where later in the evening
just before nodding off
she would turn to him and say
“that was to Jebedie for”
and they would both laugh
while downstairs in the empty saloon
the ghost of Ed the piano player
killed in a gambling dispute cross fire
would scrape back the piano stool
and the sound of his ghostly tinkling
would echo through the upstairs bedrooms
lulling the lonesome
and the not so lonesome cowpokes
to sleep and dreams of cattle drives,
beef jerky and coffee pots on open fires.
This poem first appeared as a response to the prompt GHOST TALES FROM AN IMAGINARY WESTERN over at the now sadly defunct Desperate Poets
Taking part in OpenLink Night over at dverse.
Not Every Crisis is Existential
Who’s That Knockin’
It’s early in the morning
you’re sitting on the can
who’s that knockin’
who’s that knockin’
at your front door, man.
Well it could be Jesus
it could be the Pope
it could be Barrack Obama
carrying a message of hope
who’s that knockin’
who’s that knockin’
who’s that knockin’
at your front door, man
It’s early in the morning
you’re eating your raisin bran
who’s that knockin’
who’s that knockin’
at your front door, man
Well, it could be Elon Musk
it could be Jonathan Cope
it could be that kid from across the road
the one that smells of dope
who’s that knockin’
who’s that knockin’
who’s that knockin’
at your front door, man
Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.
Golf, Flying Saucers and The Planet Odd
Golf, Flying Saucers and The Planet Odd
The end of the world has come and gone
but you remain standing on the eighteenth tee
feeling the gravitational pull of the Planet Odd
there’s no smoke without mirrors, you remark
and looking down you notice that you’re still wearing
a green polo shirt
your favorite plaid shorts
and your faded white golf shoes.
Golf is the only sport that requires blandness of its heroes
you think
and then you think …where is this shit coming from
and shouldn’t that be “demands blandness”?
There’s a low hum, you look up,
a large flying saucer hovers over the trees
to the left of the fairway
on top of the saucer is a giant inverted tea cup
complete with handle
a door opens in the side of the cup
and you’re sucked up, through the door
and into a room that looks remarkably like
the original Star Trek control room.
A guy who looks like Leonard Nimoy
walks over and says:
“How’s it going?
We’re from the Planet Odd or to be more formal, Earth 2.
You see, the Creator royally fucked up his first attempt
so we are the newer model, the second attempt.
Still a few things to work out, but we’re not doing badly at all.
We have created some illusions to make you feel at home,
but first things first , amigo.
Can I call you amigo?”
You nod.
“First things first, amigo, let’s get rid of those plaid shorts!”
Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.
This poem was inspired by a challenge from Brendan over at Desperate Poets :
“Here’s the challenge: Start with two oracles. You can follow my lead and use The Aenead as one source if you have a copy, but any classic text will do — the Bible, Shakespeare, a volume of your favorite poet or one on Native American myth, whatever. Open the book blind and let your finger fall where it may on the page and write down whatever lines you struck on. Or deal a Tarot card or iChing hexagram. If you don’t have any such tools at home, there’s a random Tarot card generator at https://randomtarotcard.com/. You can try an AI version of the Delphic oracle at < https://delphi.allenai.org/> and there’s an I Ching hexagram generator at https://www.eclecticenergies.com/iching/virtualcoins.
Next, cast a more self-referential oracle from something you created, a poem or journal or dream. Source a few lines in the same accidental manner.”
So I went to my book shelf , picked a book – “Daddy, Daddy” by Paul Durcan, opened a page and let my finger fall on the two lines that start the poem above. I then went to “Notes” on my IPhone which is where I record random lines, sayings, thoughts and found “the gravitaional pull of Planet Odd” and “there’s no smoke without mirrors” and I took it from there. Lots of fun, thanks Brendan!
(the Paul Durcan poem that provides the first two lines is called : The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian.)
The Poetry Superhero Convention
The Poetry Superhero Convention.
What a weekend that was
truly a Marvel
all the usual suspects were there
and they were all into the sauce from the get go,
Ricky the Rhyme King did his rap routine
Simile Sal sang:
Nothing Compares to U
Assonance the Loud and Consonance the Cool hooked up again
can’t keep those two apart
and the bands
The Meta Four and The Alliteration Alliance
laid down a solid groove,
and let’s not forget the families:
the Sonnets – lovely people, very iambic
the Villanelles – again lovely people
but don’t get stuck in conversation with them
they can be a tad repetitive
the Lai’s , the Sestinas, the Rubai’s
all knocking back the vino
the Ghazals had visa problems
and couldn’t make it
but the Haiku’s and the Tanka’s
came all the way from Japan
(you don’t have to bow all the time, guys)
and the Epics were there too
it took five buses to fit them all in, but they made it.
The highlight of the weekend of course
was the Bad Pun Competition:
For Better or for Verse
and the winner for the tenth year in a row
was, yes, Logan King of the Limericks.
A great weekend indeed, all verse no chapter,
some sore heads of course
and some poetry in motion in the washrooms
but well worth it.
This is a response to Brendan’s challenge over at Desperate Poets:
“So why don’t we dream super big for one unsettling week. What would your poetry superhero or heroine look like, what would h/her powers be?”
Also taking part in Open Link over at dverse.
A Pedestrian Affair
A Pedestrian Affair
they met on a zebra crossing
it was a pedestrian affair
she had an air of competence
he……just had an air
they went downhill from there
to her house
in the middle of a roundabout
near the station
in the morning they looked out
and the cars had changed rotation
the clouds were tinged
with a tawdry shade of orange
the sky was diffident
the sun judgmental
things would not be the same
would not be the same again.
Over at Desperate Poets, Brendan asks us to take a look at illicit encounters.
Why I have difficulty writing haiku (3)
Why I have difficulty writing haiku
problem with haiku
definite article is
first casualty
next casualty
indefinite article
makes me sound little
like Japanese guard
in prison camp in movie
world war two movie
who for some reason
is speaking English (how? why?)
with staccato voice
or perhaps I am
po-faced guru on mountain
dispensing bromides:
crow flies at midnight
in front of luminous moon
affair ends badly
all because I am
in service to, at mercy
of, syllable count
here it comes again
surplus syllable flop sweat
haiku-tortured night.
Over at Desperate Poets, Shay asks :
“What subject, genre, sacred cow, or literary convention do you ache to spin until it’s dizzy? What mask do you long to pull off and drag a confession out of its wearer? What accepted wisdom do you long to expose as horsefeathers? Or perhaps you just want to set your keyboard on “stun” and knock us over with your unexpected use of language? Come on, flout convention! Irony and all major credit cards accepted. Unreliable narrators welcome.”
This is a post from a while back but with a new verse!
Late Summer Groaner
Late Summer Groaner
I’m sitting in the garden
listening to the black-capped chickadees
chatting in the trees
and I’m thinking
talk is cheep
talk is cheep.
Desire – Desperate or Otherwise
Desire – what is it good for?
tender is the night
long is the day’s journey into night
it’s easier to name a street car
than it is to name one’s desire
never attempt a ménage in a glass menagerie
there is nothing less erotic than a red wheelbarrow
a thing of beauty is a joy for a fortnight.
photo taken in Sitges, Catalonia.
Shay over at: Desperate Poets
asks us to write about desperate desire. This is a poem from a while back about desire, thought it might fit, and here’s one about a different kind of desire.
The Reverend George Weeble
The Reverend George Weeble
liked to visit churches
in foreign lands,
his parishioners called him:
the steeplechaser.
When I’m old and feeble,
George Weeble said,
when I retire,
my one desire
is to be
where the spires conspire
to show me the way.
Is it Time to put Woke the Word to Bed ?
Is it Time to put Woke the Word to Bed ?
I have a conservative friend who, lately, has started to use Woke the Word a lot.
Every time he uses it, he wags his fingers above his head to indicate inverted commas. Sometimes he’ll give me a conspiratorial wink.
The wink confuses me. What are we conspiring about? And the air quotes, who is he quoting? Or do they mean “so-called”, as in my boss asked me to take my laptop with me on my “vacation”.
I asked him what he meant by “woke” and he was flummoxed. He mumbled something about pronouns, cancel culture, activists, political correctness. I explained to him that it was African-American slang for being alert to signs of racism, it came out of the Black Lives Matter movement and that being anti-woke technically means that one thinks one should not be alert to signs of racist behavior.
This did not help.
He had the notion that the woke crowd had it in for him in some way. When asked who the woke crowd are, again confusion….the left, activists, progressives…who knows. So I ask is all activism bad, is progress bad, no that’s not what he means.
I think what he means is that the world is changing in a way that threatens him, the old assumptions do not stand. The arbitrary superior status he assumes because he’s an educated, upper middle class white male is no longer automatically acknowledged, taken as read.
And it’s that woke crowd who are doing it to him.
As history tells us …when a word or phrase is coopted by conservative white males, well that word is no longer groovy, far out, outta sight, cool ,hip; particularly when they think they are the first to discover it.
Air quotes… for fuck sake….
Yes it is time to put Woke The Word to bed.
Barbeque
Barbeque
A meet and greet
with meat and grease.
Father Bragg
Father Bragg
he was a humble priest
until his altar ego
took over.
A Man for all Seasonings (poem)
A Man for all Seasonings
he was a tautology
an oxymoron
a figure of speech
a prognostic
an atheist
he beggared belief
he was terminally contradictory
though he would say
he was not
he was a man for all seasonings
except paprika
…bergamot.
For John D. (a Poem and a Deconstruction) …again.
For John D.
fecund, moribund, quincunx
fecund moribundity
moribund fecundity
rhizome, rissole, piss-hole in the snow
phenom, pheromone, genome
lissom, blossom, possum.
This poem is all about sound, association and perhaps, memory. The first three lines are an homage to the sound of ‘un’. The phrase -“fecund moribundity, moribund fecundity” – was uttered by my friend, John Damery (John D.) during a discussion about the music of Neil Diamond – his oeuvre, his place in the pantheon. This was some time ago but it has always stuck in my head, it has a brevity and clarity that could only have been brought on by the consumption of 5 or 6 pints and the ingestion of greasy chicken. After a long legal battle (not really) he has recently granted me permission to use it in a poem.
The fourth line is the workhorse of the poem, the engine, the poem’s midfield general. It inverts the ‘mo’ from the first 3 lines to create the ‘om’ that dominates the last two lines. it also introduces ‘iss’ which makes an appearance in the last line. As for “piss-hole in the snow”, I defy anyone to find a finer example of bathos . The fifth line is all about ‘om” but note the clever inversion back to ‘mo’ in ‘pheromone’.
The sixth and last line has a slick softness to it like blancmange. As promised the ‘iss’ from ‘rissole’ and ‘piss-hole’ makes an appearance before morphing into ‘oss’ and in a final stroke of nothing that remotely approaches genius, the transformation of ‘om’ into ‘um’.
Notes:
quincunx (a word that flirts with obscenity):
an arrangement of five objects with four at the corners of a square or rectangle and the fifth at its centre, used for the five on dice or playing cards, and in planting trees.
rhizome:
a continuously growing horizontal underground stem that puts out lateral shoots and adventitious roots at intervals.
Both words were used in an article in the Irish Times on the poetry of Seamus Heaney, sent to me by John D; ‘Cartesian dualism’ and ‘Binarism’ were also mentioned (and Jesus wept).
rissole:
a compressed mixture of meat and spices, coated in breadcrumbs and fried.
My mom used to make them, although I remember them as being more like a hamburger patty without the bun…thanks, mom!
Photo: English Bay, Vancouver, A-MAZE-ING LAUGHTER, by Yue Minjun.
Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.
This is also for Glenn Buttkus who passed away recently. Glenn was a regular contributor to dverse. He was an excellent poet and a man who liked edge.
Delilah
Delilah
My friend, Slim Volume,
had a girlfriend once.
called Delilah.
The relationship did not last long
and it wasn’t exactly a passionate affair,
mostly they just liked to watch television together.
I’d say hey Slim, what are you up to this weekend?
and he’d reply with an I’m glad you asked grin
Samsung and Delilah, he’d say
Samsung and Delilah.
Stopdraggingthepanda 