A VEGETARIAN VOYEUR'S LAMENT
Two sportive hippopotami
In their zoo pond roll
Recalling those big bottoms I
Had last spied in the mall
Chomping on cheeseburgers
Spread thick with mayonnaise
I’d rather ogle elephants
Than on those ladies gaze
À VOTRE SANTÉ
The most valued members
of the medical insurance system
are those who for more than forty years
suffer only colds or indigestion
then go to their graves quite suddenly
at sixty five or seventy three
from some acute and dreadful ailment
without ever missing a single payment
ALADDIN, SINBAD, SCHEHERAZADE AND ALL THAT
It was as if
all of his life he’d been stoppered,
some kind of Eau de Genie
in thick green glass
Muttering around inside
was his whole world
in those shadowed rooms
he ate, slept, busied himself
often cleaning the windows
that from time to time let through
a few flickers of sunlight
Blaming his parents
for their lack of vision
in choosing him
from rows of dusty
undistinguished corked bottles
And then some
cheeky youngster rubbed him
innocently
Helooo
is there anyone inside?
You wouldn’t believe what emerged
when the cork blew off
newspapers, shirtsleeves, organ grinders,
orange peel sunsets, beachcombers
chocolate liqueur, waterfalls, poetry,
encyclopedias, the Michelin Man
And it’s not over yet
not by a long way
APPLE WISDOM
Sir Isaac Bubble knows
secrets that you might suppose
he only discovered
when old Mother Hubbard
threw a diphthong down onto his nose
The universal force he declared
is a mixture of wondrous and weird
a plateful of sandwiches
filled with tongue twisting languages
gravitating linguistics absurd
All spins around everything else
in a soundless concerto of bells
but with wisdom infinite
he deciphered that in it
are elevens that are larger than twelves
—and theories that are disproved by elves
—and words that don’t speak to themselves
ALL ABOUT ME
I’m a very easy person
not difficult at all to please
if there’s no fish I’ll have another dish
if there’s no meat I’ll have some cheese
I’m a minimal maintenance person
who never demands attention
I’m a hermit crab with a home on my back
and a past that I never mention
I’m an independent thinker
who needs no mentor or school
I treat words like birds, ponder things absurd
I’m the exception that proves the rule
I’ve only one pair of trousers
and only one shirt for my back
I’m a homeless guy with a toneless cry
and a blanket I use as a sack
I don’t listen to the radio
and don’t give a damn for the news
neither care nor know of all the world’s woe
let the sun and the sky shape my views
I’m a very quiet person
hardly ever have much to say
and while others discuss their complaints and their fuss
I just listen while they yap yap away
MARCHING DOWN TO DUBLIN
Two lads and a lassie from Belfast
Bored stiff of the northern air
Decide to march down to Dublin
To seek some adventure there
But as they were leaving Belfast
The weathercock turned its tail
And clouds came up over Belfast
And it started to rain and hail
Soon the lassie’s teeth were a chattering
She was soaked right through to the skin
She said, let’s go back into Belfast
Just look at the state I’m in
But the sun soon came out of its hiding
And the wind blew the clouds right away
So they continued to march down to Dublin
Drying out as they went on their way
When thirsty they sipped beer and whiskey
And munched on some blueberry pies
And continued their march down to Dublin
With stars shining out of their eyes
They stopped off at a pub in Dunmurry
And had a few pints and some wine
And continued their march down to Dublin
Right after the closing time
They slept in a field near Dunmurry
In two sleeping bags made up for three
Bundled up all together they resembled
A heap of old clothes by a tree
Morning found them all achy and thirsty
But determined to get on their way
But they knew that the distance to Dublin
Was more than a week’s march away
So they went back to the pub in Dunmurry
To breakfast on bread, cheese and beer
And they stopped at an off-license in Dunmurry
As the vodka’s much cheaper there
They sat down on a bench in Dunmurry
To discuss global warming and things
And the sun rose and fell on Dunmurry
On the thirst that the warm weather brings
So they went back to the pub in Dunmurry
And had a few ales and some stout
Then continued their march down to Dublin
To find out what the good life’s about
But the wind had turned harsh in Dunmurry
And it started to rain once again
And one of the lads started sneezing
And the lassie developed a pain
So they caught a bus back into Belfast
But don’t imagine their adventure they quit
For next month they’ll march on down to Dublin
Or as soon as the weather permits
AN EDUCATED POINT OF VIEW
Down through history they march
the backward spellers
the number crunchers
the deja-vu specialists
the crystal ball peerers,
Tarot readers
coffee grind interpreters
star-chart starers
voyages from beyond
the boundaries of time
the gates of death
We laugh at them
a little nervously
we who know better
our time invested in rigid disciplines
hard-earned degrees
and all the decorations
that bedeck the gowns
and mortar-boards of academia
We peer into atoms
like bespectacled chameleons
and see only endless rows of mirrors
we delve into dictionaries
of prime numbers
unified field equations
big-bang theories
evolutionary hypotheses
crack the creator’s code
only to find further exceptions
that prove the rule
Then after the books are written and burned
after the microscopes are reluctantly put aside
after the week is spent polishing proofs
we shower
don fresh clothes
light candles
and holding our children’s hands firmly
we set off for synagogue
church or mosque
to chant our prayers
and make our requests
to an anonymous father
Would we but know
that there he sits
in his attic
throwing the dice
chasing the stars
and scratching his head
A THIN FILM OF WATER
His sexual prowess was somewhat extraordinary
eliciting a shower of encores from the audience
composed of diaphanous underwear models
who brought him bouquets, boxes of chocolates
proposals of marriage, and one, the daughter
of a chain store magnate, offered him a contract
to star in a movie about bratwurst and pickles,
the German, she assured him, could be dubbed in later
Only his wife did not appreciate him
she wanted to intellectualize, discuss Greek mythology
at four in the morning when he wanted only to sleep
Shaking her off, he fell into a watery dream he’d
often had before, standing over a pool,
that turned into a hall of mirrors
he flexed himself, struck obscene poses
that leered back at him from every corner, every
angle, now tall, now fat, curved forwards and
backwards, now round, thin, twisted, elongated,
replicating him endlessly in a hundred lurid variations
of Frankfurter, Knockwurst, Braunschweiger, Biershinken,
a grinning satire of a scene he adapted from somewhere
on the Internet, twisting, dancing in chorus line
replications and clones, a can-canning clown performing
baloney push ups in devilish abandon to the tumult
of delighted feminine applause
Nightly crowned monarch of ardor, he regarded
himself, unique, triumphant, desirable
…Narcissus of the delicatessen counter
AN INDEPENDENT THINKER
What did the proper goose
say to the propaganda
which was bubbling in the water
telling him who he aught to
..vote for in the next election
..make the proper brand selection
..wash his clothes to white perfection
..combat feelings of rejection
..get a strong and hard erection?
He said..buzz off Jack
get offa my back
despite all you may have heard
I’m an independent bird
I can make my own decisions
about what’s right and what isn’t
I don’t eat fats, run till I’m bony
shy away from all that’s phony
don’t listen to any commercial
talk only about things controversial
I’m not afflicted with patriotism
hate flags, promote internationalism
I’m an atheist and a skeptic
fads and fashions make me apoplectic
So Jack, don’t you try to persuade me
no advertising’s ever made me
swerve from my path and follow blindly
to brainwashing I don’t take kindly
However… in certain circumstances
I’m not taking any chances
I don’t walk under open ladders
won’t stroll where the black cat is
take sixteen kinds of vitamin pills
to protect me from old age and chills
can’t resist gypsy palm readers
follow enlightened new age leaders
in these matters to be quite honest
I’m a conforming non-conformist
CRASH COURSE IN UNRAVELING CONFUSION
Paper porcupines propel porpoises
potato peelings shell tortoises
advertising executives smell auspices
slogans simmer speared out of this
When everything seems so confusing
and clarity of detail we’re all losing
a few symbols strung together
will serve to clear things up for ever
Justice, freedom, civil rights
ideals for which our nation fights
democrats, republicans and conservatives
labels with no artificial preservatives
Yes, life has never been so fine
now on sale at nine dollars ninety nine
CRAZY CONCOCTIONS
There’s a softness to prickly bristle
when it’s pickled in vinegary brine
there’s a dog’s bark that follows a whistle
where the turf and the earth combine
There’s an egg that floats high on the water
like an ark with the world closed inside
and in every mile and a quarter
there’s more than ten furlongs to ride
There’s a morning as dark as a tar brush
there’s an ant with an elephants tusk
there are tugs that pull liners from harbors
there are rats who smell strongly of musk
But of all the world’s strange combinations
baked Alaska’s the surprising extreme
those boiling cold ice cream sensations
when you can’t tell your laugh from your scream
EX PLURIBUS VERITAS
Two origami figures
discarded in a bin
frustrated, incomplete
rustled into conversation
Hello who are you?
I’m a bird
but my wings are backward
I can’t fly
what are you?
I don’t know
some kind of an animal
I guess, that got crumpled
Hey you know what?
let’s refold each other
I’d like that
Look, undo this flap
put a new crease here
and here
now fold this way
Now it’s your turn
bend
close back on yourself
open this way
Like this?
Yes, press here
Hey, maybe we could
join up?
Like this?
Yes
And this?
Yes
This is nice
Oh yes!
Just one more fold
Oh wow
a bird dog!
No silly
a pterodactyl
A FIDDLE MARY TAIL
Fairy had a fiddle frog
All rumpled stiltskin croak
Whose hamlinned voice a legend sang
From forth its pied piped throat
All fleecy tripped the jekkyl hydes
All lemming to the moat
God save the green from cradlefall
From drown in tumbling quotes
But allice fell in watery den
Into an underland of hatters
And all the dumpkin sea king’s men
Couldn’t mend these scattered matters
A FOUR LETTER AFFAIR
Enthralled by each others anagrams
the barefaced lie
kissing french lips mindlessly
and pronouncing them so very properly
pencils in hand they fill in
the blacks and the whites
rising in the middle of the night
to go to the bathroom
or to the fridge for a drink
or check the inbox
tomorrow is always another day
They met at the scrabble club
he told her he was getting divorced
she said she was forty nine
across the blanks and double letter squares
they eyed each other bifocally
she liked his blunt fingers and in between
turns imagined them sliding into her undies
which they did at four thirty
on that sticky afternoon
Gradually meet after meet they
came to recognize each other’s little idiosyncracies
and the way they both re-used four letter words
running up the board across and down
until no space was left to evade what was becoming
as apparent as the way they moved
the tiles around and around
the vowels getting fewer
the communication more gutteral
competitive unpronounceable
boring, it was after all
just another four letter affair
sipped for a few weeks
like lukewarm alphabet soup
A FRANK DISCUSSION ON THE SEXUAL NATURE OF ELEPHANTS
Head to head
or tail to tail
whichever way they do it
it’s heavy travail
Which is why
I suppose
in zoos and circus rings
they’re generally busy
with other things
I wonder if
they fantasize
about removing their tusks
or reducing their size
And if they’re dreamin’
or sometimes wishin’
that they could practice
the missionary position
A FUNNY GOAT DREAM
Godfrey the goat had a dream one night
that woke him up, so he turned on the light
but as hard as he tried to remember the dream
the details kept running away from him
so he emptied his head out on to the ground
and started to sort through what he found
and to make sure there was nothing that he missed
he picked up a pencil and made a list
and here’s what he found…
One old rhyme that he’d completely forgotten
about wooly pajamas (or was it cotton?)
a chewed up multiplication table
which explained why at math he wasn’t so able
three jokes about Englishmen and Scots in some other land
the point of which he didn’t quite understand
two telephone numbers that he’d learnt off by heart
useless now since they’d changed how they start
rules about which way to cross the street
and stuff about closing your mouth when you eat
a few new words to God Save the Queen
some nasty things he’d said that he didn’t mean
several lies he’d told that sounded quite neat
and some secrets he’d promised not to repeat
but of that funny dream there wasn’t a trace
and now in his head there was lots of space
so he turned off the light and went back to bed
and woke up in the morning with this rhyme in his head
A MOVING STORY
The pictures framed in glass arrived broken
paintings I had laboriously packed
in cardboard, layer upon layer,
front to front as I had been instructed
each wrapped and re-wrapped
in board, towels and blankets
Streets scoured for suitably sized cartons
hauled, cut to exact measurements, bent,
folded, parceled, packaged, secured with
yards of adhesive tape, stout string knotted
and wound around and around to secure
Alas, the paintings framed in glass arrived broken
Yet my glass framed Picasso print somehow
seemed intact but as I dusted it off and hung it
on my office wall I noticed that the corner
of the glass was also cracked
Oh dear, I thought, the stalwart movers
had stuffed the cartons into an overloaded van
behind the dog kennel, the pot plants for which
the driver had been coerced to make room
So the paintings framed in glass arrived broken
After three sweating complaining laborers
had lugged them up four flights of stairs
and dumped them on the floor,
After the driver demanded an extra tip for each
in reward for somehow squeezing in the dog’s kennel
which the dog had never used, overlooking
the agreement that the price quoted included tips
The pictures framed in glass arrived broken
my back was broken, my spirit broken,
the frame of my Picasso broken
Poetic justice, said my wife
A WORD FROM THE CHIEF EDITOR
After reading through so many tearful wrenchings
with gaping and gasping and clammy palm clenchings
I now declare by proxy and by pen
herewith to never to allow that word again
Not only that, I’ve also decided
to ban any utterance that sounds just like it
or references to anything that might imply
that any of us could possible “ostrichfy”
Yes this year a lesson I’ve learned
and as far as the following ones are concerned
when you consider which poems to be submitting
no verses on ostrich I’ll be admitting
You may find this decree hard to understand
and claim I’m putting my head in the sand
perhaps in another year or three
when you’ll probably vote to get rid of me
My successor may revoke this rule you deem shoddy
but until then…over my ostrich body
ALL THE WORLD'S A SANDWICH
All the world’s a sandwich
and all the writers on it
merely short order chefs
they have their cold cuts and rambulations
and each his favorite combinations
the English love their BLT on buns
with relish and a lot of schoolboy puns
while poets in the States prefer their verse
bedecked with mayo and profanities
or even worse
And of course lets not forget
the other English speaking continents
where foreign sounding rhyme schemes contain
exotic local ingredients and condiments
I’m looking for a suitable sponsor
to promote an international poets sandwich contest
then we could settle once and for all
which country satisfies our appetite the best
Or even better, a global poets jamboree
at which new types of sandwiches are offered free
then, when we have tasted each plateful
labeled ‘try it’, we can go back home
resolved to go on diet
AN AFFINITY FOR BOVINITY
some verses beg to rhyme
quatrains pantoums and such
scheming forms their heart
yet somehow disappoints our soul
we respect them but don’t like them very much
still despite our vows to say exactly
what we mean and damn the scheme
the necessity to conform still ticks
away our pulse and before we can proclaim
fuck it, we muck it up again, apologize
anthologize then go ahead and write
another sonnet with absolutely nothing in it
except the need to please that goddamn
metronome, that drum beat, some patterned
behavior imprinted by the steady squelch of mud
chewed, swallowed, regurgitated as cud
AS THE CROW FLIES
How far to Dingle Dungle Do
A nestling in the lea?
The sign says seven miles or so
But as the crow flies three
I walked to Dingle Dungle Do
It took me half a day
But darn it, I just lost that crow
Somewhere along the way
The moral of this story lies
In understanding fables
Crows fly in zigzags, not straight lines
To country birds timetables
MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD
One of the most famous documents in history
was the note written by Wolfgang Magellan to
Queen Beatrax on his return from Stonehenge,
unfortunately the original was destroyed in
the Great Fire of London but an almost exact
replica by Sir Alfred Rosetta is preserved in
the Royal Museum of Glass at Almatiers.
In it Alexander painstakingly describes sixteen
years of research that led up to his discovery
that the sun revolves around the moon and not
as had been previously thought. As we know
today he was finessed by Bartholomew who
announced his identical findings two days earlier.
A likeness of Sir Rosenstein being beheaded
by Royal decree can be viewed in Madame Rousseau’s
waxwork exposition for two and sixpence. It stands
right next to the one of Shimon Pius sharing the
Peace Prize with Adolf Shickleberg whose hand
inside his overcoat is hiding the conspiracy that
led to the overthrow of the Waterloo empire.
The document is now known by its transliterated
title: The First Volley in the Battle of Balderdash.