767 Humor poems

An unexpected consequence Of mine (and one that shows how well It really went, in a scary sense) Is at its most perceptible When I happen to observe a nose With the hump of  which my nose is rid (Though not my psyche, you’d suppose) And feel the sighting visited By what a lord might call a kind Of  pity: distant, tinged with scorn... A thing you’d more expect to find In someone to his beauty born.

Our falter, whose art is Heavy, Halloween be thy name. Your kingdom’s numb your children dumb on earth moldy bread unleavened. Give us this day our wayward dead. And give us our asses as we forgive those who ass against us. And speed us not into wimp nation nor bequiver us with needles, for thine is the flimflam and the sour, and the same fucking story in leather for never and ever. Ah: gin.

’Twas on a lofty vase’s side, Where China’s gayest art had dyed The azure flowers that blow; Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima, reclined, Gazed on the lake below. Her conscious tail her joy declared; The fair round face, the snowy beard, The velvet of her paws, Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, She saw; and purred applause. Still had she gazed; but ’midst the tide Two angel forms were seen to glide, The genii of the stream; Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue Through richest purple to the view Betrayed a golden gleam. The hapless nymph with wonder saw; A whisker first and then a claw, With many an ardent wish, She stretched in vain to reach the prize. What female heart can gold despise? What cat’s averse to fish? Presumptuous maid! with looks intent Again she stretch’d, again she bent, Nor knew the gulf between. (Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled) The slippery verge her feet beguiled, She tumbled headlong in. Eight times emerging from the flood She mewed to every watery god, Some speedy aid to send. No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred; Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard; A Favourite has no friend! From hence, ye beauties, undeceived, Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved, And be with caution bold. Not all that tempts your wandering eyes And heedless hearts, is lawful prize; Nor all that glisters, gold.

Because it changes O’Hare to o hate, o hate, o hate — over and over, no matter how many times I retype it. O hate, like an American tune, an American fable where, yo, you can enter an o hate bathroom, take a selfie in the mirror cuz your sister wants to see the pockets of your Great American Rhinestone Jeans. Because, on a street called Viewpoint, I get home becomes I get guns, off a road on a mission to kill every squirrel-ish pedestrian. Because he was packing, concealed, threatening to use it, use his hands or feet.My feet, iamb of a son of a birch, of a brick chatting with the devil, with God, with a listener not listening. Because he’d gone bonnets, his garden bounty a faded wine, his wife’s linguine a longing for a golden ear, so I took her to the botanical gardens in my getaway car, to a fruit on a vine, but the limes went lemur, the night to nonfat, the clear to catastrophic. Because driving away from the frog man croaking hypocrite, heavenly went down like a melting hedge, a gal gone hog-tied, a fish crying, a tiger- tiger togetherness, flight or fucked, a heart, stroked, racing to its vicarious carousel, a fungus lashed to a beam gone beleaguered. Because he will kill her, that’s his plan: to kill us all. Can’t commit or commute, can’t debone his breath, can’t take his acute paranoia, chalk it up to cute. Because this here’s a Josie madhouse, a bedroom bedrock-locked. Because Blvd morphed to Bled, spirit summoned with a Ouija board. Because soap holder went love hen, though love had flown the Calycanthus like the grilled portobellos messing with his vowels. Please please, I pleaded to the pleading day. Because prayer is like a bread line, a penny for your exploded mind. Because lots of logs to you

A reading  from the book of  Willie Maxwell 679:1738 ...    then Rap Gawd formed a man from the dust of the auto-tune &breathed into his nostrils the breath of Rémy Martin the man became Fetty Wap. Rap Gawd saw fit to make Fetty a counterpart. so he caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; while he was sleeping he took one of the man’s eyes then closed up the place with flesh. then the Rap Gawd made a woman from the eye he had taken out of the man. the creation story of Fetty the first trap rapper to make a song I might play at my wedding. there’s a choir of church mothers smiling down on the brown boy that sings of a woman’s worth in a culture destined to nullify it. do you know how long sisters been waiting for a brother to willingly let us hit the bando? (after patiently explaining what the fuck that means.) l’union fait la force your music emblematic of the motto of Haiti unity makes strength as we scream SQUAAADDDD! the weight of that bass hits hard like Gawd’s tears landing on glow in the dark floors ’cause Gawd does not just “cry” He makes it rain on a crowd of women in heels higher than most GPAs dancing their way through nursing school &out of some deadbeat’s roach-filled 1 bedroom. the fellas big brother arm-wrapped shoulders singing off-key about Ki’s &pies and other shit they have no real idea about. the only song in the club that allows a hetero male to gaze into the eyes of another [suspected] hetero male and/or stranger singing his fucking heart out. make him more mathematician than murderer spewing lyrics repping the urban district’s finest cognac this is a black man’s “Sweet Caroline” oh, oh, oh! Fetty, you got me — I, too, see heaven peering through the pearly-gated smile of that gap-toothed princess in your video. I, too, have a glock in my rari — in the form of a master’s degree but don’t get it twisted this summa cum laude bloaw anytime a motherfucker think they know me! &my trap look a lot like a dimly-lit cafe with semicold red stripes a microphone a couple judges but I’ll be damned if anyone tell me I ain’t a queen of this shit . &then I blink &the bass subsides &the song fades into another brother caring more about his golden grill than making the best of a family business. &she picks up her ass her purse slides off the pole disappears into a mixture of low-budget smoke machines &catcalling men wedding bands tangled in the drawstring of their sweats &another Saturday twerks itself into the crisp breeze of Sunday morning &the church mothers glance over the room covered in government-issued confetti &Gawd smiles as they bellow in unison “I want you to be mine again!”

my shoes rest all night under my bed tired they stretch and loosen their laces wide open they fall asleep and dream of walking they revisit the places they went to during the day and wake up cheerful relaxed so soft

In a new translator’s version of Genesis, there’s no Adam. No serpent. In paradise, I don’t bleed. Fig leaf-free girl, dear God, I say as we converse fluently without tongues, joined as two spice-drenched beloveds in a song of songs, could we please ask the gardener to plant a pomegranate grove by a stand of non-fruiting olive cultivars, which don’t bloom and aren’t so messy?

Ur ol’ Hyar lib in ur house on de hill, He hunner yurs ol’ an’ nebber wuz ill; He yurs dee so long an’ he eyes so beeg, An’ he laigs so spry dat he dawnce ur jeeg; He lib so long dat he know ebbry tings ’Bout de beas’ses dat walks an’ de bu’ds dat sings— Dis Ol’ Doc’ Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een ur mighty fine house on ur mighty high hill. He doctah fur all de beas’ses an’ bu’ds— He put on he specs an’ he use beeg wu’ds, He feel dee pu’s’ den he look mighty wise, He pull out he watch an’ he shet bofe eyes; He grab up he hat an’ grab up he cane, Den—“blam!” go de do’—he gone lak de train, Dis Ol’ Doc’ Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een ur mighty fine house on ur mighty high hill. Mistah Ba’r fall sick—dee sont fur Doc’ Hyar, “O, Doctah, come queeck, an’ see Mr. B’ar; He mighty nigh daid des sho’ ez you b’on!” “Too much ur young peeg, too much ur green co’n,” Ez he put on he hat, said Ol’ Doc’ Hyar; “I’ll tek ’long meh lawnce, an’ lawnce Mistah B’ar,” Said Ol’ Doc’ Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een ur mighty fine house on ur mighty high hill. Mistah B’ar he groaned, Mistah B’ar he growled, W’ile de ol’ Mis’ B’ar an’ de chillen howled; Doctah Hyar tuk out he sha’p li’l lawnce, An’ pyu’ced Mistah B’ar twel he med him prawnce Den grab up he hat an’ grab up he cane “Blam!” go de do’ an’ he gone lak de train, Dis Ol’ Doc’ Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een ur mighty find house on ur mighty high hill. But de vay naix day Mistah B’ar he daid; Wen dee tell Doc’ Hyar, he des scratch he haid: “Ef pashons git well ur pashons git wu’s, Money got ter come een de Ol’ Hyar’s pu’s; Not wut folkses does, but fur wut dee know Does de folkses get paid”—an’ Hyar larfed low, Dis sma’t Ol’ Hyar, Whar lib up dar Een mighty fine house on de mighty high hill!

Test for the Old Smile, they’re going to roast it— it’ll have to keep its ends up all night, for the secretary says she finds it creepy, and the golfing partner says you got that right, and the rival says it’s fake, and the ambitious junior makes his point with a few slides, and the protege the Smile was always sweet to walks up and says it turns his insides. They harp on it, the bosses and the buddies, and things get even better by these lights, which is to say it’s shredded like a secret, which is to say it’s one of the great nights; and folks are saying so while they’re still roasting: they cry out to the Smile and it smiles back, like something huge is burdening a hammock, or is until you hear a frightful crack.— And then you better run like you saw nothing. And then you better run like you weren’t there. There is a line, it’s long and isn’t smiling. You won’t believe me when I tell you where.

Eat all you want but don’t swallow it . —Archie Moore The ruth of soups and balm of sauces I renounce equally. What Rorschach saw in ink I find in the buttery frizzle in the sauté pan, and I leave it behind, and the sweet peat-smoke tang of bananas, and cream in clots, and chocolate. I give away the satisfactions of food and take desire for food: I’ll be travelling light to the heaven of revisions. Why be adipose: an expense, etc., in a waste, etc.? Something like the body of the poet’s work, with its pale shadows, begins to pare and replace the poet’s body, and isn’t it time?