767 Humor poems

How the thickest of them erupt just above the ear, cresting in waves so stiff no wind can move them.   Let us praise them in all of their varieties, some skinny as the bands of headphones, some rising from a part that extends halfway around the head, others four or five strings stretched so taut the scalp resembles a musical instrument.   Let us praise the sprays that hold them, and the combs that coax such abundance to the front of the head in the mirror, the combers entirely forget the back.   And let us celebrate the combers, who address the old sorrow of time’s passing day after day, bringing out of the barrenness of mid-life this ridiculous and wonderful harvest, no wishful flag of hope, but, thick, or thin, the flag itself, unfurled for us all in subways, offices, and malls across America.

At the London Zoo a toddler falls over the rail of the Primate World only if you close your eyes and a female gorilla comes to sit by, to circle her long dark arm around him only this one time while the others stay away. The zookeeper says she lost a baby earlier this year only just barely and they’ve been waiting months for her tits to dry. The boy’s mother watches from above only when I say so the thirty minutes it takes the right person to lower the right ladder down only as a last resort. In the interim a newscaster whose station carries it live only if you promise not to let go

Harry Whittington: the man accidentally shot by Dick Cheney Have you ever been in a situation where somebody you thought was your friend did something that hurt you very much, and then they tried to blame it on you, and then you had a heart attack? Just wondering. I thought Jack Abramoff was my buddy— a small fish with a large chicken. What a dick. Why’d he have to remind me of my first wife, Jacqueline Bouvier-Kennedy-Onassis-Bono-Crowe-Pitt-Degeneres-Federline? Of course, that speaks volumes to and of itself. On the other hand, everything tastes like chicken. And cooked people taste like butter. I barely touched the clam chowder but I ate the chicken fried steak. Then I ate hot beignet and sludgy chicory and I accidentally drove the hot ‘n’ sporty. Now I may try the chicken fries. Why poo’ed vindaloo? The founding fathers risked life and limb just so I could trust the kung pao ham. But the former potions master spiked my polyjuice with mango juice, and now I like drinks with chicks in them. Doesn’t anyone care about my feelings? All I wanted to do was kill little birds. Because, you know, that’s fun. I forget, which one am I banging, that Plame bitch or the Ambassador to Switzerland? I’d ask Dick which of the two he’s screwing but he never answers my emails. In other news, I’ve been up to my neck in new food intern activity. The skewers are kind of like hot wings, except they are made with chicken tenders. The backwash is kinda long, but watch the whole thing for the slo-mo matrix-esque finale. Way cooler than any other stick figure theater. A barn-raised quail just said “Bugs Bunny isn’t real.” Is there no end to the horrors this shooting will reveal?

I am an atheist who says his prayers. I am an anarchist, and a full professor at that. I take the loyalty oath. I am a deviate. I fondle and contribute, backscuttle and brown, father of three. I stand high in the community. My name is in Who’s Who . People argue about my modesty. I drink my share and yours and never have enough. I free-load officially and unofficially. A physical coward, I take on all intellectuals, established poets, popes, rabbis, chiefs of staff. I am a mystic. I will take an oath that I have seen the Virgin. Under the dry pandanus, to the scratching of kangaroo rats, I achieve psychic onanism. My tree of nerves electrocutes itself. I uphold the image of America and force my luck. I write my own ticket to oblivion. I am of the race wrecked by success. The audience brings me news of my death. I write out of boredom, despise solemnity. The wrong reason is good enough for me. I am of the race of the prematurely desperate. In poverty of comfort I lay gunpowder plots. I lapse my insurance. I am the Babbitt metal of the future. I never read more than half of a book. But that half I read forever. I love the palimpsest, statues without heads, fertility dolls of the continent of Mu. I dream prehistory, the invention of dye. The palms of the dancers’ hands are vermillion. Their heads oscillate like the cobra. High-caste woman smelling of earth and silk, you can dry my feet with your hair. I take my place beside the Philistine and unfold my napkin. This afternoon I defend the Marines. I goggle at long cars. Without compassion I attack the insane. Give them the horsewhip! The homosexual lectures me brilliantly in the beer booth. I can feel my muscles soften. He smiles at my terror. Pitchpots flicker in the lemon groves. I gaze down on the plains of Hollywood. My fine tan and my arrogance, my gray hair and my sneakers, O Israel! Wherever I am I become. The power of entry is with me. In the doctor’s office a patient, calm and humiliated. In the foreign movies a native, shabby enough. In the art gallery a person of authority (there’s a secret way of approaching a picture. Others move off). The high official insults me to my face. I say nothing and accept the job. He offers me whiskey. How beautifully I fake! I convince myself with men’s room jokes and epigrams. I paint myself into a corner and escape on pulleys of the unknown. Whatever I think at the moment is true. Turn me around in my tracks; I will take your side. For the rest, I improvise and am not spiteful and water the plants on the cocktail table.

I had just won $115 from the headshakers and was naked upon my bed listening to an opera by one of the Italians and had just gotten rid of a very loose lady when there was a knock upon the wood, and since the cops had just raided a month or so ago, I screamed out rather on edge— who the hell is it? what you want, man? I’m your publisher! somebody screamed back, and I hollered, I don’t have a publisher, try the place next door, and he screamed back, you’re Charles Bukowski, aren’t you? and I got up and peeked through the iron grill to make sure it wasn’t a cop, and I placed a robe upon my nakedness, kicked a beercan out of the way and bade them enter, an editor and a poet. only one would drink a beer (the editor) so I drank two for the poet and one for myself and they sat there sweating and watching me and I sat there trying to explain that I wasn’t really a poet in the ordinary sense, I told them about the stockyards and the slaughterhouse and the racetracks and the conditions of some of our jails, and the editor suddenly pulled five magazines out of a portfolio and tossed them in between the beercans and we talked about Flowers of Evil, Rimbaud, Villon, and what some of the modern poets looked like: J.B. May and Wolf the Hedley are very immaculate, clean fingernails, etc.; I apologized for the beercans, my beard, and everything on the floor and pretty soon everybody was yawning and the editor suddenly stood up and I said, are you leaving? and then the editor and the poet were walking out the door, and then I thought well hell they might not have liked what they saw but I’m not selling beercans and Italian opera and torn stockings under the bed and dirty fingernails, I’m selling rhyme and life and line, and I walked over and cracked a new can of beer and I looked at the five magazines with my name on the cover and wondered what it meant, wondered if we are writing poetry or all huddling in one big tent clasping assholes.

living in actual ass under the stars Josie’s experiment easy access to parking and bushes the first few times I feel awful flattened myself against the wall easy access to bulk movements of air dear souls “open themselves up, enraptured, to the essence of all things” marshmallow chimes blown on by a flamey wind we’re made of the same stuff you and I matches benzene drop zones you see this wound in my thigh a brief history of Vietfly I say screw the bag lady who called me prince and said I did nothing for my people what does a spider feel in moonlight? marriage riding its dark horse a child I tried to climb the black cast iron vine of my mother’s sewing machine to learn how to sing at the school of the silver wheel but thread-chatter got in the way bunch-talk the needle stabbed mama’s finger good we called it off pagoda of dirty dishes in the sink she threatens to kill me she’s upset I say the sea is a warning full and prompt the wave-shovels cannot pick up the dead duck fucking waves hats off to the dead duck how many reels exhaust the image history of the person it would be lovely to heal in a little muck called never mind

I can’t swim because I can’t fit into the water I am two million feet tall but thank you for inviting me I am standing in line inside my giant shirt If someone wanted to weaponize me they would tell me to lie down on New York and the city I destroyed would hurt me back I eat stars It’s a riot I know my big mouth full of  their light

The moon is my alibi. My tenders throw hissy fits. My scalp’s at the foot of the precipice. My lume is spento, there’s a creep in my cellar. You can stand under my umbrella, Ella. Who put pubic hair on my headphones? Who put the ram in Ramallah? I’m just sitting here spinning my spinning wheels— where are the snow tires of tomorrow? The llama is burning! My heart is an ovary! Let’s chase dawn’s tail across state lines, sing “Crimson and Clover” over and overy, till wonders are taken for road signs. My fish, fast and loose, shoot fish in a kettle. The boys like the girls who like heavy metal. On Sabbath, on Slayer, on Maiden and Venom, on Motörhead, Leppard, and Zeppelin, and Mayhem . . .

I don’t buy it, says the scientist. Replies the frail and faithful heart, it’s not for sale.

I eat my peas with honey; I've done it all my life. It makes the peas taste funny, But it keeps them on the knife.