767 Humor poems

Kills bugs dead. Redundancy is syntactical overkill. A pin-prick of peace at the end of the tunnel of a nightmare night in a roach motel. Their noise infects the dream. In black kitchens they foul the food, walk on our bodies as we sleep over oceans of pirate flags. Skull and crossbones, they crunch like candy. When we die they will eat us, unless we kill them first. Invest in better mousetraps. Take no prisoners on board ship, to rock the boat, to violate our beds with pestilence. We dream the dream of extirpation. Wipe out a species, with God at our side. Annihilate the insects. Sterilize the filthy vermin.

I really do wish I did. Because if I loved lawnmowers I could go to the lawnmower museum I just heard about on the radio in a piece about small museums. It’s in Southport apparently — a seaside town “fringed to the north by the Ribble Estuary,” according to Wikipedia. It would be quite a trip to go up there, and I’d almost certainly have to stay the night. I think I might stay in the Prince of Wales Hotel, which looks conveniently situated for the station and the museum too. I can hardly bear to think how much I’d be looking forward to making that trip if I loved lawnmowers. On the radio they said they have all sorts of models from Victorian ones all the way through to a state-of-the-art robot one that’s powered by solar energy. If I was planning the visit I’d probably have a bit of a virtual walk-round on Street View, and in fact I’ve just done exactly that in an effort to capture the feeling I’d have if I was actually anticipating a trip to the lawnmower museum. Exploring the area I discovered that Southport looks very much like Weston-super-Mare, where, as it happens, I stayed in a halfway house many years ago after doing a stint in rehab. Now crack cocaine —that I loved.

What vegetable leviathan extends beneath the dinner table, an unseen, monstrous green that pulls the chair out from under our faith in appearances: see a mere tuft of leaf on the plate like a wing, but if it flies away, it undoubtedly will disturb the continental drift asleep under the salad plate, the hidden world we forget as we reach for the smaller fork— (and now, mouth full, don't speak: politely chew your leaf of firmament that's torn and tossed up in vinegar here as we'll be tossed before its vast root maybe someday or any moment).

I certainly know who I am . . . I can get away with being politically incorrect. I am the ambassador to First Nations’ poetic expressions & as Kinsella pompously put it straight “I have the license to do so.” what a magical way to escape tyranny! just like Trudeau & Chrétien hiding beneath cowboy hats nevertheless & back to the point, call me cowboy call me First Nations call me aboriginal call me native call me chug call me skin if you must, but never call me Indian. I call myself that! & if you feel guilty when I say so, this is not about postcolonial rhetoric it is about an identity crisis

I buy a Mana Party T-shirt from AliExpress. $9.99 free shipping via standard post. Estimated arrival 14–31 working days. Tracking unavailable via DSL. Asian size XXL. I wear it as a dress with thigh-high vinyl boots and fishnets. I post a picture to Instagram. Am I navigating correctly? Tell me, which stars were my ancestors looking at? And which ones burnt the black of searching irises and reflected something genuine back? I look to Rihanna and Kim Kardashian shimmering in Swarovski crystals. Make my eyes glow with seeing. I am inhaling, long white clouds and I see rivers of milk running toward orange oceans of sunlit honey. Tell me, am I navigating correctly? I want to spend my money on something bougie, like custom-made pounamu hoop earrings. I want to make them myself but my line doesn’t trace back to the beauties in the south making amulets with elegant fingers. I go back into blackness, I go back and fill in the gaps, searching through archives of advertisements: Welcome to the Wonderland of the South Pacific. Tiki bars, traffic-light cocktails & paper umbrellas. Tell me, am I navigating correctly? Steering through the storm drunk & wet-faced waking up to the taste of hangover, a dry mouth, a strange bed, shirt above my head is the flag fluttering over everything. What were we celebrating? The 6th of February is the anniversary of the greatest failed marriage this nation has ever seen. In America, couples have divorce parties. We always arrive fashionably late. Tell me, am I navigating correctly? The sea our ancestors traversed stretches out farther than the stars.

With apologies to Rudyard Kipling ("If") If you can't wait to pick a book right now And read it through until the very end To find out who did what, and why, and how, Then—lucky you!—you're a READER, my friend!

That old guy with the muskrat soup slurps it loudly from the ladle Hoowah, pretty good stuff! You shift your weight on the stool raise the bad leg just enough and retrieve the red bandana hankie. Talk still spills like sunshine over the knife-marred counter as slowly you wipe the can push the cloth back in your pocket and cough down the grape pop glancing at the bobbing black head where it surfaced in the pot. The burned farm. That hungry year. The long walk from Strawberry Mountain warmed now with the weight of fresh butchered wiiyaas in your pack. Mum’s baking soda biscuits mixed and cut lined waiting in the tin pan like our little kids’ faces at the window. Sure took the wrinkle out of our bellies that night. One opening day when those two old fishermen ended up drunk clinging to the canoe. The hunt for diamond willow, beaver camp on Easter weekend, the whitefish feeding on wax worms, the string of crappies slipped from your hand, the missing outhouse floor, training waaboose, feeding the least weasel, tales from working on the ships, from boiling sap, planting trees, pounding, carving, and then the cigar box memories of those old time Indians who could really tell stories

i tore down my thoughts roped in my nightmares remembered a thousand curses made blasphemous vows to demons choked on the blood of hosts ate my hat threw fits in the street got up bitchy each day told off the mailman lost many friends left parties in a huff dry fucked a dozen juke boxes made anarchist speeches in brad the falcon’s 55 (but was never thrown out) drank 10 martinis a minute until 1 day the book was finished my unspeakable terror between the covers, on you i said to the enemies of the souls well lorca, pushkin i tried but in this place they assassinate you with pussy or pats on the back, lemon chiffon between the cheeks or 2 weeks on a mile long beach. i have been the only negro on the plane 10 times this year and its only the 2nd month i am removing my blindfold and leaving the dock. the judge giggles constantly and the prosecutor invited me to dinner no forwarding address please i called it pin the tail on the devil they called it avant garde they just can't be serious these big turkeys

If not for the cat, And the scarcity of cheese, I could be content.

If you’re fond of road-blocks, this one can’t be beat: A big tree in the middle of the street.