767 Humor poems

If you should have the sniffles, you’d better blow your nose. Because if you should go “Achoo!” you’ll mess up all your clothes.

You remember the Incredible Shrinking Man? I said. Well, last night I dreamed I was him. It began the same way. The shirt cuffs were the first thing that came to my attention, drooping down over my knuckles in the bedroom mirror. And my waistband and shoes were getting looser by the day. Within weeks you could perch me on your knee like a male doll. Later you would put me to bed in the empty matchbox. You failed to watch for the spider that came to explore me. I fought her with a darning needle, a button my shield. She retreated from me on a thread. I followed her down to the cellar. How I made my way back I’ll never know. It took me days to travel over the quilt to your hand. No longer a hand but an Alpine range of sleeping flesh. I crawled into an open pore and entered your bloodstream.

And what amazes me is that none of our modern inventions surprise or interest him, even a little. I tell him it is time he got his booster shots, but then I realize I have no power over him whatsoever. He becomes increasingly light-footed until I lose sight of him downtown between the federal building and the post office. A registered nurse is taking her coffee break. I myself needed a break, so I sat down next to her at the counter. "Don't mind me," I said, "I'm just a hungry little Gnostic in need of a sandwich." (This old line of mine had met with great success on any number of previous occasions.) I thought, a deaf, dumb, and blind nurse, sounds ideal! But then I remembered that some of the earliest Paleolithic office workers also feigned blindness when approached by nonoffice workers, so I paid my bill and disappeared down an alley where I composed myself. Amidst the piles of outcast citizenry and burning barrels of waste and rot, the plump rats darting freely, the havoc of blown newspapers, lay the little shroud of my lost friend: small and gray and threadbare, windworn by the ages of scurrying hither and thither, battered by the avalanches and private tornadoes of just being a gnome, but surely there were good times, too. And now, rejuvenated by the wind, the shroud moves forward, hesitates, dances sideways, brushes my foot as if for a kiss, and flies upward, whistling a little-known ballad about the pitiful, raw etiquette of the underworld.

Skipping out from the major international cocktail party with my becleavaged blight, a jeroboam in her tight fist, I broke open my copy of Sarcasm for Beginners, i.e., men. Never had I seen so many pairs of to-the-elbow gloves. Never did I see a puttoed ceiling groan so with thin talk as the great, the grim and the gone pressed terrible flesh, so many penguins offering tastesome wisps and skimps from doilied salvers: cherry-shaded caviar, cheese puffs, dark sugared berries, dainty octopods, gently vinegared, with not enough tentacles to count the capes and stoles, fine bespoke pashminas, silk snoods, at least one vicuña suit, tainted with gold thread. I’d seen down a Blenheim, two Lime Rickeys and was eyeing a gamine mixologist who was straining out Savoy Royales when my raddled nemesis limped over to announce she had encountered my latest screed, all four foot eleven of her tortoiseishly quivering, a nubbin of cream cheese on her whiskery lip and her good eye withering my borrowed companionette as she leaned on air. I am not a man who has not known the turmoil women offer, the gift you accept of their wit, the way you’d slip a hand into a gloveful of cockroaches, comply with a last-minute call to join a seal cull. Tanya, I pouted, I am awed and honored you opened a window in your schedule even to glance at my inconsequential outpourings. At which point she clattered out a scoffing gibe so sour you couldn’t blend it with a chemistry set from Hamley’s and, seizing my escort by her neat wrist, we tore out onto Jermyn Street, along which I performed a sort of shuffle, one eye on the book and one on m’lady’s competition-standard backside as she led us to the Ritz.

Our teacher gave detention to the fountains in the hall. She handed extra homework to the artwork on the wall. We saw her point a finger at a banner and a sign. She said their bad behavior was completely out of line. The principal approached her and said, “What is all this fuss? I heard you tried to punish all the tires on a bus. “You’ve made the teachers angry by disrupting all their classes, so if you want to keep this job, you have to wear your glasses!”

There was once a little animal, No bigger than a fox, And on five toes he scampered Over Tertiary rocks. They called him Eohippus, And they called him very small, And they thought him of no value -- When they thought of him at all; For the lumpish old Dinoceras And Coryphodon so slow Were the heavy aristocracy In days of long ago. Said the little Eohippus, “I am going to be a horse! And on my middle finger-nails To run my earthly course! I’m going to have a flowing tail! I’m going to have a mane! I’m going to stand fourteen hands high On the psychozoic plain!” The Coryphodon was horrified, The Dinoceras was shocked; And they chased young Eohippus, But he skipped away and mocked. Then they laughed enormous laughter, And they groaned enormous groans. And they bade young Eohippus Go view his father’s bones. Said they, “You always were as small And mean as now we see, And that’s conclusive evidence That you’re always going to be. What! Be a great, tall, handsome beast, With hoofs to gallop on? Why! You’d have to change your nature! Said the Loxolophodon. They considered him disposed of, And retired with gait serene; That was the way they argued In “the early Eocene”. There was once an Anthropoidal Ape, Far smarter than the rest, And everything that they could do He always did the best; So they naturally disliked him And they gave him shoulders cool, And when they had to mention him They said he was a fool. Cried this pretentious Ape one day, “I’m going to be a man! And stand upright, and hunt, and fight, And conquer all I can! I’m going to cut down forest trees, To make my houses higher! I’m going to kill the Mastodon! I’m going to make a fire!” Loud screamed the Anthropoidal Apes With laughter wild and gay; They tried to catch that boastful one, But he always got away. So they yelled at him in chorus, Which he minded not a whit; And they pelted him with cocoanuts, Which didn’t seem to hit. And then they gave him reasons Which they thought of much avail, To prove how his preposterous Attempt was sure to fail. Said the sages, “In the first place, The thing cannot be done! And, second, if it could be, It would not be any fun! And, third, and most conclusive, And admitting no reply, You would have to change your nature! We should like to see you try!” They chuckled then triumphantly, These lean and hairy shapes, For these things passed as arguments With the Anthropoidal Apes. There was once a Neolithic Man, An enterprising wight, Who made his chopping implements Unusually bright. Unusually clever he, Unusually brave, And he drew delightful Mammoths On the borders of his cave. To his Neolithic neighbours, Who were startled and surprised, Said he, “My friends, in course of time, We shall be civilized! We are going to live in cities! We are going to fight in wars! We are going to eat three times a day Without the natural cause! We are going to turn life upside down About a thing called gold! We are going to want the earth, and take As much as we can hold! We are going to wear great piles of stuff Outside our proper skins! We are going to have Diseases! And Accomplishments!! And Sins!!!” Then they all rose up in fury Against their boastful friend, For prehistoric patience Cometh quickly to an end. Said one, “This is chimerical! Utopian! Absurd!” Said another, “What a stupid life! Too dull, upon my word!” Cried all, Before such things can come, You idiotic child, You must alter Human Nature! ” And they all sat back and smiled. Thought they, “An answer to that last It will be hard to find!” It was a clinching argument To the Neolithic Mind!

Daily, daily scathing roughens the psyche and veils are unhinged. I too was a planet, planed and waterless. Wolf-roved. Our roofs leaked, mischievous sisters locked the Mother General out in the garth where she prayed to the Foundress and the dead and the living looked on, entombed and disapproving. Gray nuns, grave, gave out. There was weeping in every stall. Though the stalls be empty of cattle, we trust. Though our intellects rust, we grow tweedy-brown and opportunistic, feeding off morsels. A cosmos of relics in the crypt and a senior sister led the laity around brilliantly by a twisted adamantine-ringed nose, to see broken finger bones, bloody cloths, brains. Blood so blue and white we redden and hide our film-star faces. Cagey. Margaret crushed by a door. Martha martyred by a window overlooking the park, with swaggering ducks and blinding water. Paddlers. What if you had held a grudge, fondled it, and found that you had fallen in love? He has turned up finally, his jaw like the suspension bridge, magnetized with stubble, cheekbones like girders. Oh no, I am not a cliché. See my inside. Ten years inside but without the comforts of bantam mornings. Bodies on beds shimmied into corners with shifty valances. September blues. Fat satin. Sidling in from the green room. In the gut, a vagabond ache like disgust. I walk cumbersome honesty sideways through several doors, park her in the smoky alley. Pull up compunction by his Jaeger collar, kiss his spandrel nose, expel him into the snowy street. I relish jealousy on the side with copious dressing. Feed depression to a gull called Guillaume on a bleak beach during lunch break. Simplify the universe with a pie chart and chomp down three-quarters of it with mustard and beer.

Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye; Four-and-twenty blackbirds Baked in a pie. When the pie was opened The birds began to sing; Wasn't that a dainty dish To set before a king?

Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye, Four and twenty blackbirds Baked in a pie. When the pie was opened The birds began to sing— Wasn't that a dainty dish To set before the king? The king was in the counting-house Counting out his money, The queen was in the parlor Eating bread and honey, The maid was in the garden Hanging out the clothes. Along came a blackbird And snipped off her nose.

I want to write my lover a poem but a very bad one. It'll include a giant squid and some loose change and cuff links and two blue ferries chugging headfirst on the East River at twenty-six knots and only at the last minute averting disaster through quick thinking and sure reflexes. Also a bow and arrow and glossy red apple I perch in front of my heart. To be honest my lover doesn't really like poetry, which I guess is why I plan to write such a bad one, so he can feel right and strong and good in his beliefs. Tonight when I go see my lover he’ll hold me as I've never been held except by him and then I'll have to give him back. When you get new things you treat them like glass for a while and then get used to them and manhandle them like everything else. I don't want to give him back but partly it's not up to me and partly I don't want to be his old sofa. I want to radiate and gleam arrestingly until the certain, premature end. You can compose a whole life out of these rollercoasters. You can be everywhere and nowhere, over and over life slapping you in the face till you’re newly burnished flat-out gasping and awake.