[Chris O'Carroll]

Owl and Pussy-cat Honeymoon

“Our courtship was fun, now the wedding is done,
And we’ve issues we need to discuss,”
Said the Pussy. “Coition in any position
Is a knotty dilemma for us.
Never mind procreation, just plain recreation
Involving a cat and a bird
Looks to be heavy weather. Between fur and feather
Congress must, alas, prove absurd.”

“My sweet wife,” the Owl said, “our marital bed
Is a place we have no need to fear.
We were made for romance; we are creatures of fancy.
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!
How do you suppose that a ring from the nose
Of a piggy fits snug on your paw?
Nonsensical verse can make better from worse.
We are not bound by natural law.

“We can dance hand in hand on the edge of the sand,
Though of hands we are neither possessed.
I strum my guitar, croon how lovely you are,
And the Muses take care of the rest.
Details of anatomy simply don’t matter. We
Transcend such stuff; we belong
To a realm whose carnality scoffs at reality.
Come inhale from this tree; it’s a Bong.”



Emily Dickinson Sorts Her Laundry

The Sock Drawer is a little Ark –
Whose Dwellers two by two
Are first a Mound – of Wantonness
The Laundress must undo.

Entangled, newly clean and dry,
They hide out – from the Hand
That vetoes bachelor Debauch –
And publishes – the Banns.

The Matchmaker’s Intent is firm –
She finds and rolls – each Pair,
Coordinate Habiliments
For ten-toed Twins to – share.

Yet mirthful Providence conspires
On every washing Day –
That when the even Task is done,
Still Oddness – claims one Stray.



A.E. Housman Changes a Light Bulb

The bulb that once lit up this room
Has yielded, burnt out, to the gloom.
I climb the ladder, flex my wrist,
Apply an anti-clockwise twist,

Discard the old, insert the new,
Threading this time a clockwise screw,
Then flip the switch to spark the glow
That will not last for long, I know.

A golden lad now in his prime,
This bulb will know a darker time.
Once more the ladder I will mount
To put paid to his bright account.

The filament that’s hot and bold
Today will soon enough grow cold.
These threescore watts of fragile light
Cannot for long ward off the night.



The Emperor of Birthday Cake

Call the plump, periphrastic one,
The insurance executive,
The poet as the letter P,
Roller of big cigars as the letter C.
Let be be befuddled by fake,
The only emperor is the emperor of birthday cake.

Bid him whip curdled words for philosophy soufflé,
Purvey 10¢ ideas in $12 packages,
Author of “Thirteen Ways
Of Saying Give Me a Break.”
The only emperor is the emperor of birthday cake.



(Brian Allgar also has a parodic take on the Owl/Pussy-cat sexual dilemma.)

[Edmund Conti]

Yo, Andrew Marvell
As written by E. E. Cummings

Sun
face
down)))
eTc batan
ga //Kermanshah// te
Bag(h)dad>>Arabia
Paypal, myra
……..Leban
)on( Crete
gullsgullsgullsgullsgulls
@Sicily
Rain rain rain rain
Spain
,Hartford, Hereford ,Hampshire
Se~eee eeee~eeeeeee~eeeee~eeeeeeee~a
Face down : (
SHniADghtOWS

[Edmund Conti]

Witness


You heard a fly buzz—when you died—
You were still in the room—
I said I wasn’t there—I lied—
I came to share your doom.

I meant to fly around and leave
But someone said it was you
I thought—therefore—that I should grieve
But first--for fun—I’d buzz you.

So here I fly—just interposing
In your poem to make a hash of
But here is Death—I must be closing.
And now—Miss D.—I’ll dash off.

[Edmund Conti]

The Love Song of J. Billy Collins

You are the diner in sawdust restaurants,
the other woman in one-night cheap hotels.
You are one of those women talking of Michelangelo
and Rembrandt and Picasso and Klee.
You are the woman who dares to eat a peach
or even mangoes and over-ripe bananas.

However, you are not a pair of ragged claws,
And, dear, you never scuttle.
Nor do you shimmy, slither or sashay.
And you are certainly not the confidant of Ezra Pound.
There is no way you could be the confidant of Ezra Pound.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of mandarin oranges and things poetical,
that I am not Prince Hamlet
or any other Great Dane you might know.

But I am the yellow smoke that glides along the street
and the patient etherized upon a table.
But don’t worry, I am not the diner in sawdust restaurants.
You are still the diner in the restaurant.
You will always be the diner in the restaurant.
Not to mention the sawdust on the floor and—somehow-- the cheap wine.

[Edmund Conti]

One more and then I'll quit unless I find my chicken-crossing-the-road poem. But not to worry, I am not looking too hard.

I have to say these were fun to read and a bright beginning for the year. Don't know if I have a favorite yet but I do like the goofy silliness of "Emperor of Birthday Cake."

A Howler
Allen Ginsberg’s take on ”Going to Extremes” by Richard Armour

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by the yearning for ketchup, starving, frustrated,
dragging themselves through suburban kitchens looking for a fix of red,
angry hamburger lovers burning for that old Heinz magic.
I’m with you on the patio where the grill spatters and the hamburger wails for embellishment.
I’m with you on the patio in my dreams I am dripping from a sudden explosion
of that controlled substance that Ronald Reagan called a vegetable.


Going to Extremes

Shake and shake
The catsup bottle.
None’ll come
And then a lot’ll.

[Erik Olson]

RED ALERT: Never mind, on second thought, that parody (now effaced) too contextual. Mea Culpa.

O my love is like red, red wine
OWhen fortified—
Port, bold as a stop sign
OYou must abide.

O my love is like impolite,
OLoved like an old scar
Picked up in a razor fight
OAt a red light bar.
s

[Orwn Acra]

Sea Dirge

"Paul the Octopus, who rose to worldwide fame for correctly predicting the winner of several World Cup 2010 games, died at the age of 2 1/2." -- Washington Post

Stop all the conchs. Tell the walrus not to moan.
Tell the seahorse not to whinny in the algae bloom alone.
But let the calamari on some Captain Nemo's plate
Grow cold and stale to symbolize our octopus' fate.

The Taps-playing trumpet fish, the sirens of Capri,
The mermaids and the mermen, please do not sing to me;
Music is not needed now for all I hear instead
Is the record playing backwards the message: Paul Is Dead.

He was my Madame Rosalie. He was my crystal ball.
He was my octo-oracle, my telepathic Paul.
He had more premonitions than all other octopi;
I could not see death coming, now all I do is scry.

Throw the tea leaves in the rubbish, pack the Tarot cards away--
Charms and divinations are not wanted on this day.
There is nothing to prognosticate. There is nothing to discuss.
Let the seven seas fall silent: I have lost my octopus.

[RCL]

The King of Night

Call the peeler of stinging onions,
the red-eyed one, and let him peel
back layers of doubt in this domain.
Let Jane and John their mourning spill:
Jane sees comfort for the corpse,
John just says that he’s seen worse.
Let I know not seems seem right.
The only king’s the king of night.

Take from a desk, one bought from Sears,
poorly assembled, missing screws,
a will one wrote before one knew,
and chant it loud through cries and fears,
then torch it to be the only light
one sees until snuffed out by tears.
Let one imagine the soul’s one flight.
The only king’s the king of night.

[Gail White]

I've loved Max's parrot poem for years.

MISS DICKINSON GOES TO THE OFFICE

Because I could not stop for lunch,
it kindly stopped for me.
The lunch tray held a lemon sponge
and watercress and tea.

I heard a fly buzz - in the slaw -
immortal for an hour.
The tea was hot - a small Brazil-
although the cream was sour.

Since then 'tis centuries, yet each
seems shorter than the day
I first surmised the weekend was
five working days away.

MR. HOUSMAN AT SEVENTY

When I was one-and-twenty,
My friends would often vow
That I depressed them plenty.
They ought to see me now.

I think about the end times
That daily draw more near.
I don't brood much on end rhymes,
I save my strength for fear.

I pass the barber, knowing
With every trim or shave
He sees my haircut growing
Some inches in the grave.

The doubts I couldn't bluff through
Hang heavy on my wrists.
There isn't time enough to
Decide if God exists.

My life is blindman's buff, is
The water in a sieve.
I wonder if my Fluff is
The cat I won't outlive.

[RCL]

An Ironic Cross

A unique cross on Calvary
duplicating human form
made masses of confused and weary
congregate around the berm.

The cross’s widely outspread arms,
embracing all within its sight,
civilized with mystic charms,
drew devotees into its light.

Revered in myriad revisions,
that cross has borne a sacred story
of uncountable conversions
by arts inspired by Calvary.