767 Humor poems

What I like about your country she tells me is the toilets I wouldn’t mind bringing one home but it wouldn’t do much good she says she likes the bathtubs and the refrigerators but she is not so crazy about the tortillas which are not made properly or the cilantro which tastes like soap Also the freeways ruin the landscape and the children watch television when they could be playing soccer and the teenagers stare at their parents with bare faces that say give it to me and the abuelitos are like dogs to the children the children walk by with no respect mangoes here are not so good not enough rain and the women here have so many clothes I think your country has the most wonderful bathrooms and everyone has a house although tents would be nicer I think or boats or even just sleeping in a tree My family has a tree we live under but the tree has no toilet I grant you that.

Fingers: Cramped, you are hardly anything but fidgets. We, active, differentiate the digits: Whilst you are merely little toe and big (Or, in the nursery, some futile pig) Through vital use as pincers there has come Distinction of the finger and the thumb; Lacking a knuckle you have sadly missed Our meaningful translation to a fist; And only by the curling of that joint Could the firm index come to have a point. You cannot punch or demonstrate or hold And therefore cannot write or pluck or mould: Indeed, it seems deficiency in art Alone would prove you the inferior part. Toes: Not so, my friends. Our clumsy innocence And your deft sin is the main difference Between the body’s near extremities. Please do not think that we intend to please: Shut in the dark, we once were free like you. Though you enslaved us, are you not slaves, too? Our early balance caused your later guilt, Erect, of finding out how we were built. Your murders and discoveries compile A history of the crime of being agile, And we it is who save you when you fight Against the odds: you cannot take to flight. Despite your fabrications and your cunning, The deepest instinct is expressed in running.

As some brave admiral, in former war Deprived of force, but pressed with courage still, Two rival fleets appearing from afar, Crawls to the top of an adjacent hill; From whence, with thoughts full of concern, he views The wise and daring conduct of the fight, Whilst each bold action to his mind renews His present glory and his past delight; From his fierce eyes flashes of fire he throws, As from black clouds when lightning breaks away; Transported, thinks himself amidst the foes, And absent, yet enjoys the bloody day; So, when my days of impotence approach, And I’m by pox and wine’s unlucky chance Forced from the pleasing billows of debauch On the dull shore of lazy temperance, My pains at least some respite shall afford While I behold the battles you maintain When fleets of glasses sail about the board, From whose broadsides volleys of wit shall rain. Nor let the sight of honorable scars, Which my too forward valor did procure, Frighten new-listed soldiers from the wars: Past joys have more than paid what I endure. Should any youth (worth being drunk) prove nice, And from his fair inviter meanly shrink, ’Twill please the ghost of my departed vice If, at my counsel, he repent and drink. Or should some cold-complexioned sot forbid, With his dull morals, our bold night-alarms, I’ll fire his blood by telling what I did When I was strong and able to bear arms. I’ll tell of whores attacked, their lords at home; Bawds’ quarters beaten up, and fortress won; Windows demolished, watches overcome; And handsome ills by my contrivance done. Nor shall our love-fits, Chloris, be forgot, When each the well-looked linkboy strove t’ enjoy, And the best kiss was the deciding lot Whether the boy fucked you, or I the boy. With tales like these I will such thoughts inspire As to important mischief shall incline: I’ll make him long some ancient church to fire, And fear no lewdness he’s called to by wine. Thus, statesmanlike, I’ll saucily impose, And safe from action, valiantly advise; Sheltered in impotence, urge you to blows, And being good for nothing else, be wise.

If, when studying road atlases while taking, as you call it, your morning dump, you shout down to me names like Miami City, Franconia, Cancún, as places for you to take me to from here, can I help it if all I can think is things that are stupid, like he loves me he loves me not? I don’t think so. No more than, some mornings, waking to your hands around me, and remembering these are the fingers, the hands I’ve over and over given myself to, I can stop myself from wondering does that mean they’re the same I’ll grow old with. Yesterday, in the café I keep meaning to show you, I thought this is how I’ll die maybe, alone, somewhere too far away from wherever you are then, my heart racing from espresso and too many cigarettes, my head down on the table’s cool marble, and the ceiling fan turning slowly above me, like fortune, the part of fortune that’s half-wished- for only—it did not seem the worst way. I thought this is another of those things I’m always forgetting to tell you, or don’t choose to tell you, or I tell you but only in the same way, each morning, I keep myself from saying too loud I love you until the moment you flush the toilet, then I say it, when the rumble of water running down through the house could mean anything: flood, your feet descending the stairs any moment; any moment the whole world, all I want of the world, coming down.

Well aren't you the harsh necessity, As in what fear is for? It was the summer of You should have been there, Though the last thing I want Anywhere near me is you. Louche and thaumaturgic, You made my faith My foolishness— Easy as lying to trees. Essence of the inessential Is what you are, double rainbow, Extrinsic as blood is to stars, An empire not of death, But inspired by death, Farrago of arid precepts, A few cheap ideas about hope, The eschaton, alterity, All featuring you. What are the chances? Slim to none. But listen here, my fraud, my forger, I could close my eyes at any time. All I have to do is close my eyes.

When in the dumps, I hate the things That ordinarily I love. I loathe the lark that blindly sings; I hate the bland, blue sky above. The crocus, sneering on the lawn, Forsythia about to bloom— I'd like to see them dead and gone, Instead of filling life with gloom. But most of all, I do not care, While I am droning in my hive, To hear vivacious chums declare How great it is to be alive.

Nothin very bad happen to me lately. How you explain that? —I explain that, Mr Bones, terms o' your bafflin odd sobriety. Sober as man can get, no girls, no telephones, what could happen bad to Mr Bones? —If life is a handkerchief sandwich, in a modesty of death I join my father who dared so long agone leave me. A bullet on a concrete stoop close by a smothering southern sea spreadeagled on an island, by my knee. —You is from hunger, Mr Bones, I offers you this handkerchief, now set your left foot by my right foot, shoulder to shoulder, all that jazz, arm in arm, by the beautiful sea, hum a little, Mr Bones. —I saw nobody coming, so I went instead.

Bargain tarts, raspberry, goose, he said, don't write about that surgery, women who have hacked off write all parts and natures of women who lose food in the bottom parts of refrigerators, onions, scallions, sour tomatoes, tiny cocktail weenies lost in the airless dark write When you give over your breast to cancer, for God's sake don't write about it. Write about silliness, holding hands in sandboxes, small girls playing fudge- and-find-me-alley-tag at dusk, Rochester, state of pubescent, New Yorka roonie. ...day I learned to drive aimed car at horizon and floored it. Got there. God in color, no cable, firsthand. Going and coming back I thought I'd live. Not much for visions, still at sink soaking pinkies in sweetalmond suds, I heard Mom. Come on home, she said. Scared the witless bejeebies out of me. Next day I opted for surgery. Cut that mama off and saved my life. Big daddy surgeon said right on the mark, sweet honey. It was done. He's got a girlfriend works at his office, don't you know, she thinks he's licorice stick swinger. I caught them hugging in the mimeo room. Ain't nothing to it, he said, rolling his cup of a palm over the scar. Mmmmmm-mmmmm, this hillock is a sweet raisin, roll over baby, pour me out. Okeydokey. What came next in the woods, woolly dark trees don't give a fudge if what's hugging them hard dents in two places. I hang on for dear life. Filled pockets with seedpods, got bulbs I shoehorned into clay pots for life's sake. Nevertheless the disc shone hard, or didn't.

The chicken I bought last night, Frozen, Returned to life, Laid the biggest egg in the world, And was awarded the Nobel Prize. The phenomenal egg Was passed from hand to hand, In a few weeks had gone all round the earth, And round the sun In 365 days. The hen received who knows how much hard currency, Assessed in buckets of grain Which she couldn’t manage to eat Because she was invited everywhere, Gave lectures, granted interviews, Was photographed. Very often reporters insisted That I too should pose Beside her. And so, having served art Throughout my life, All of a sudden I’ve attained to fame As a poultry breeder.

You can never tell By the looks of a frog How high it can leap, Said her Auntie Ott. Haley's hair flips up and down As she moves in her hard shoes, Her leather coat for winter Is lengthy and sways, some stains Mottling the bottom— Elegant windows in decline That at one time One could climb through, French imitation Nailed shut for decades. In shadow Pigeons peck in dirty snow Massed against the closest wall. What her hair will look like someday, She surmises. But otherwise Isn't troubled by the future. Don't walk like a duck, Men don't like it, said Auntie Ott. Not necessarily, responded her grandmother, As she brushed a crumb onto a saucer— Playing cards, stories of earlier poverty. As a girl she pretended To be as worried as they Whether Bobby would be drafted And killed in the war. Maybe she's important in art Or decoration, supposes the student Adjusting his pack— As the light changes, he steps out But she banks around the corner Behind him, purseless, gloveless, Passing a restaurant, a coin store, A key shop—owners staring over the street Wishing they were younger. Or lived in an earlier time. Which is partly the fault Of late winter. Clittering ice In trees of Veteran's Park. . . Lightly swinging her arms now, Heading uphill, growing distant, Like a figure studied In Auntie Ott's Utrillo print— Stick-like, scarecrow-like— To her right, a converted house Looking vaguely like a shrunken Monticello. . . Cream-colored barriers Of plowed snow as sun sprays More volume. . . A moment of deception There's not much that can be done, Said the city, when the oaks Were removed for curb repair. The dome fell off the theatre. A policeman peering east, frozen. Just as the museum is shuttered Next to the blank bowling alley (which is our other perspective). Haley has never felt trapped, Though the possibilities, occasionally, Have skirted about like sparrows. A jet crosses the sky. Followed by its vibration. What she found sustaining She learned in college. Where she goes is no one's business Either. Neither is she worshipped And adored—Auntie Ott Would be dismayed. Though not entirely