767 Humor poems

I was, I was—by its posthumous chomp, by its bad dab of venom, its joy-buzzer buzz. If you’re ever shanked like the chump that I was, by the posthumous chomp of an expired wire, you’ll bellow out prompt at the pitiless shiv when she does what she does. Was

Isn't it always the heart that wants to wash the elephant, begging the body to do it with soap and water, a ladder, hands, in tree-shade big enough for the vast savannahs of your sadness, the strangler fig of your guilt, the cratered full moon's light fueling the windy spooling memory of elephant? What if Father Quinn had said, "Of course you'll recognize your parents in heaven," instead of "Being one with God will make your mother and father pointless." That was back when I was young enough to love them absolutely though still fear for their place in heaven, imagining their souls like sponges full of something resembling street water after rain. Still my mother sent me every Saturday to confess, to wring the sins out of my small baffled soul, and I made up lies about lying, disobeying, chewing gum in church, to offer them as carefully as I handed over the knotted handkercheif of coins to the grocer when my mother sent me for a loaf of Wonder, Land O'Lakes, and two Camels. If guilt is the damage of childhood, then eros is the fall of adolescence. Of the fall begins there, and never ends, desire after desire parading through a lifetime like the Ringling Brothers elephants made to walk through the Queens-Midtown Tuunnel and down 34th Street to the Garden. So much of our desire like their bulky, shadowy walking after midnight, exiled from the wild and destined for a circus with its tawdry gaudiness, its unspoken pathos. It takes more than half a century to figure out who they were, the few real loves-of-your-life and how much of the rest— the mad breaking-heart stickiness—falls away, slowly, unnoticed, the way you lose your taste for things like Popsicles unthinkingly. And though dailiness may have no place for the ones that have etched themselves in the laugh lines and frown lines on the face that's harder and harder to claim as your own, often one love-of-your-life will appear in a dream, arriving with the weight and certitude of an elephant, and it's always the heart that wants to go out and wash the huge mysteriousness of what they meant, those memories that have only memories to feed them, and only you to keep them clean.

Where are you wandering to, little fools Come, big sister will teach you how to write verse Itchy little wasps sucking rotting flowers Horny baby lambkins butting gaps in the fence

Dedicated to the Women Here’s to the men! Since Adam’s time They’ve always been the same; Whenever anything goes wrong, The woman is to blame. From early morn to late at night, The men fault-finders are; They blame us if they oversleep, Or if they miss a car. They blame us if, beneath the bed, Their collar buttons roll; They blame us if the fire is out Or if there is no coal. They blame us if they cut themselves While shaving, and they swear That we’re to blame if they decide To go upon a tear. Here’s to the men, the perfect men! Who never are at fault; They blame us if they chance to get The pepper for the salt. They blame us if their business fails, Or back a losing horse; And when it rains on holidays The fault is ours, of course. They blame us when they fall in love, And when they married get; Likewise they blame us when they’re sick, And when they fall in debt. For everything that crisscross goes They say we are to blame; But, after all, here’s to the men, We love them just the same!

I am a careful marshmallow toaster, a patient marshmallow roaster, turning my stick oh-so-slowly, taking my time, checking often. This is art--- a time of serious reflection as my pillowed confection slowly reaches golden perfection. My brother grabs ‘em with grubby hands shoves ‘em on the stick burns ‘em to a crisp cools ‘em off flicks soot eats quick. I’m still turning my stick. He’s already eaten six.

Can't tell your oh from your ah? Go, go or else go ga-ga. What, were you born in a barn? Oh. Ah. What do you say when the dentist asks? No novacaine? Nah. Then joke's on us, Jack: we gnaw ourselves when we really ought to know. Can't tell the force from the farce, nor our cores from our cars. The horde works hard in this new nation of shopkeeps, moles in malls, minding our stores when we should be minding our stars. Harmony, whoremoney—can we even tell the showman from the shaman? Or are we the worst kind of   tourists, doing La France in low fronts, sporting shorts at Chartres and so alone in our élan? Nope. We're Napoleons of nowhere, hopeless going on hapless, unable to tell our Elbas from our elbows.

He was tall, lean, serious about his profession, said it disturbed him to see mismatched teeth. Squinting, he asked me to turn toward the light as he held an unglazed crown by my upper incisors. With a small brush he applied yellow, gray, pink, violet and green from a palette of glazes, then fired it at sixteen hundred degrees. We went outside to check the final color, and he was pleased. Today the dentist put it in my mouth, and no one could ever guess my secret: there’s no one quite like me, and I can prove it by the unique shade of the ivory sculptures attached to bony sockets in my jaw. A gallery opens when I smile. Even the forgery gleams.

I put an animal on an animal which I put onto the animal I had already stacked on top of my first animal and stood back to appraise my work only it looked much too short despite the number of animals I had gathered, and I felt tired and silly and disappointed, slumping to my knees, rocking back onto my bum, then lying down to stare into the hoary sky until my eyeballs softened and I was forced by the consistent light to close them and listen to the animals taking a surprisingly long time to disorganize themselves.

CARDELIA. THE bassette-table spread, the tallier come, Why stays SMILINDA in the dressing-room ? Rise, pensive nymph ! the tallier stays for you. SMILINDA. Ah ! Madam, since my SHARPER is untrue, I joyless make my once ador'd alpieu. I saw him stand behind OMBRELIA's Chair, And whisper with that soft deluding air, And those feign'd sighs that cheat the list'ng fair — CARDELIA. Is this the cause of your romantic strains ? A mightier grief my heavy heart sustains. As you by love, so I by fortune cross'd, In one bad deal three Septleva's I lost. SMILINDA. Is that a grief which you compare with mine ? With ease the smiles of fortune I resign. Wou'd all my gold in one bad deal were gone, Were lovely SHARPFR mine, and mine alone. CARDELIA. A lover lost, is but a common care, And prudent nymphs against the change prepare. The queen of Clubs thrice lost ! Oh ! who cou'd guess This fatal stroke this unforeseen distress ! SMILINDA. See ! BETTY LOVEIT very à propos ! She all the pains of love and play does know, Deeply experienc'd many years ago. Dear BETTY shall th' important point decide, BETTY, who oft the pains of each has try'd : Impartial, she shall say who suffers most, By cards, ill-usage, or by lovers lost. LOVEIT. Tell, tell your griefs ; attentive will I stay, Tho' time is precious, and I want some tea. CARDELIA. Behold this equipage by MATHERS wrought With fifty guineas (a great pen'orth !) bought ! See on the tooth-pick MARS and CUPID strive, And both the struggling figures seem to liue. Upon the bottom see the Queen's bright face ; A myrtle foliage round the thimble case ; JOVE, JOVE himself does on the scissars shine, The metal and the workmanship divine. SMILINDA. This snuff-box once the pledge of SHARPER's love, When rival beauties for the present strove, (At CORTICELLI's he the raffle won, There first his passion was in public shown ; HAZARDIA blush'd, and turn'd her head aside, A rival's envy all in vain to hide) This snuff-box — on the hinge see diamonds shine ; This snuff-box will I stake, the prize is mine. CARDELIA. Alas ! far lesser losses than I bear, Have made a soldier sigh, a lover swear : But oh ! what makes the disappointment hard, 'Twas my own Lord who drew the fatal card ! — In complaisance I took the Queen he gave, Tho' my own secret wish was for the Knave : The Knave won son ecart that I had chose, And the next pull my septleva I lose. SMILINDA. But ah ! what aggravates the killing smart, The cruel thought that stabs me to the heart, This curs'd OMBRELIA, this undoing fair, By whose vile arts this heavy grief I bear, She, at whose name I shed these spiteful tears, She owes to me, the very charms she wears : An aukward thing when first she came to town, Her shape unfinish'd and her face unknown ; She was my friend, I taught her first to spread Upon her sallow cheeks enlivening red, I introduc'd her to the park and plays, And by my Interest COSINS made her stays ; Ungrateful wretch ! with mimick airs grown pert, She dares to steal my favourite lover's heart. CARDELIA. Wretch that I was ! how often have I swore, When WINNALL tallied, I would punt no more ! I know the bite, yet to my ruin run, And see the folly which I cannot shun. SMILINDA. How many maids have SHARPER's vows deceiv'd ! How many curs'd the moment they believ'd ! Yet, his known falshood could no warning prove : Ah ! what are warnings to a maid in love ! CARDELIA. But of what marble must that breast be form'd, Can gaze on Bassette, and remain unwarm'd ? When kings, queens, knaves are set in decent rank, Expos'd in glorious heaps the tempting bank ! Guineas, half-guineas, all the shining train, The Winner's pleasure and the Loser's pain ; In bright confusion open rouleaus lie, They strike the soul, and glitter in the eye ; Fir'd by the sight, all reason I disdain, My passions rise, and will not bear the rein : Look upon Bassette, you who Reason boast, And see if Reason may not there be lost ! SMILINDA. What more than marble must that breast compose, That listens coldly to my SHARPER's vows ! Then when he trembles, when his blushes rise, When awful Love seems melting in his eyes ! With eager beats his Mechlin cravat moves : He loves, I whisper to myself, He loves ! Such unfeign'd passion in his look appears, I lose all mem'ry of my former fears ; My panting heart confesses all his charms ; I yield at once, and sink into his arms. Think of that moment, you who Prudence boast ! For such a moment, Prudence well were lost. CARDELIA. At the Groom-porter's, batter'd bullies play ; Some Dukes at Marybon bowl time away : But who the bowl or rattling dice compares To Bassette's heavenly joys and pleasing cares ? SMILINDA. Soft SIMPLICETTA doats upon a beau ; PRUDINA likes a man, and laughs at show : Their several graces in my SHARPER meet ; Strong as the footman, as the master sweet. LOVEIT. Cease your contention, which has been too long, I grow impatient, and the tea too strong : Attend, and yield to what I now decide ; The equipage shall grace SMILINDA's side ; The snuff-box to CARDELIA I decree ; So leave complaining, and begin your tea.

is that you can never see the one you're wearing, that no one believes the lies they tell, that they grow to be more famous than you, that you could die in one but you won't be buried in it. That we use them to create dogs in our own image. That the dogs in their mortarboards and baseball caps and veils crush our hubris with their unconcern. That Norma Desmond's flirty cocktail hat flung aside left a cowlick that doomed her. That two old ladies catfighting in Hutzler's Better Dresses both wore flowered straw. Of my grandmother the amateur hatmaker, this legend: that the holdup man at the Mercantile turned to say Madam I love your hat before he shot the teller dead who'd giggled at her homemade velvet roses. O happy tragedy of hats! That they make us mimic classic gestures, inspiring pleasure first, then pity and then fear. See how we tip them, hold them prettily against the wind or pull them off and mop our sweaty brows like our beloved foolish dead in photographs. Like farmers plowing under the ancient sun.