767 Humor poems

A bridge engineer, Mr. Crumpett, Built a bridge for the good River Bumpett. A mistake in the plan Left a gap in the span, But he said, “Well, they'll just have to jump it.”

Careening over the highway in my lightweight Japanese Death Star buffeted by the great and powerful winds icy winds of winter warming cold air with hot air under it accordion pleats of natural disaster my disaster in the past if you were to say to me or to rage at me in a poem about America I would charge you a great failure to even use the word. It is banality this land is suffering because poets— their great cohort— I look twice to save lives.

Aunt Mildred tied up her petticoats with binder’s twine, and my great-uncle Ezekiel waxed and waxed his moustaches into flexibility. It was the whole family off then into the dangerous continent of air and while the salesman with the one gold eyetooth told us the cords at our ankles were guaranteed to stretch to their utmost and then bring us safely back to the fried chicken and scalloped potatoes of Sunday dinner nobody quite believed. Edwina, my father’s half sister by my grandfather’s marriage to a former dance hall girl, who got her doctorate in tensor evaluation, she said whole galaxies have been known to belch and disappear taking with them the King Charles spaniels and the gold- plated fire hydrants from where the fire finally stopped in the earthquake year. But it was no good growing roots into the vegetable garden, not after the Monarch butterflies flew up into one whirling vortex and blanked out of immediate space, it was no good hoping Ken and Barbie, sexless, would anchor us to our interchangeable faces, or that our feet those flat independent anemones, could grip forever. The salesman smiled, with his face the size of the Empire State and growing bigger and bigger and into and through the face Aunt Mildred went shouting “Banzai!” into Great-Uncle Ezekiel’s inherited ear trumpet, shredding it to tin ribbons, and Edwina, dressed in the full commencement robes of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Mother and Father wrapped in each other’s reminiscences, and the goldfish, and finally I went too, out of the mold my body had been formed in and inhabited, as if place were the only realization of person and either the cords snapped, as any sceptic might have expected, or they are stretched out finer than a human hair, that keeps growing after death, even in the black melting that may or may not be the tight coral beach beyond.

We are a sad people, without hats. The history of our nation is tragically benign. We like to watch the rabbits screwing in the graveyard. We are fond of the little bunny with the bent ear who stands alone in the moonlight reading what little text there is on the graves. He looks quite desirable like that. He looks like the center of the universe. Look how his mouth moves mouthing the words while the others are busy making more of him. Soon the more will ask of him to write their love letters and he will oblige, using the language of our ancestors, those poor clouds in the ground, beloved by us who have been standing here for hours, a proud people after all.

I’m being carried down the Burlington Arcade by Beadles in top hats, jewelers on both sides holding out their hands and wrapped in cashmere. When people speak of near-death experiences they’re always going through tunnels, they’re happy, they’re never going through the Burlington Arcade. Eric says, It’s good to see you wearing clothes and I have to admit he’s wearing the most beautiful trousers and I say, Eric you’re not supposed to be in this poem. Get back into your shop! I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. The Head Beadle’s saying “Burlington Gardens!” Should I tip him? Am I dead? What happens next?

Supervises over the teatable our voluble hostess The passing round of titterings and toasties. Her glass-eyed friends, confidence's make-and-breaks, Give each in series gobbets of another's cakes. Dough drips into their tight triangular shoes. Their mouths give vent to evil-smelling news Keep their minds pure, make mental products crisper, With speaking eyeball rolls and the not too improper whisper. Fawn-eyed, the daughter, a gossip apprentice, Festoons gilt malice on her unmalicious twenties. Holiday smarmed the manureminded ephebus Sees in every skirt lubricity's rebus. Sex is their unknown god, with neither purity nor pox, To whom they genuflect whenever they enjoy their shocks. A little of everything, is the note they strike, The only limitation, what they think they do not like. Always they suffer inexpressible injustices, Making their own beds, these amateur Procrusteses, But expect their maids to lie in them. The middle classes Must have some defence against the vulgar masses. They have no use for idle gossips that scarify: But in their own leisure get together to verify Rumours of rationalists, use of contraceptives, Probable bastards, hope of their proving defectives (Details being perquisites of good detectives). This of course for the parish's sake. These long nose weevils Seek knowledge of others', as expression of their own, evils: And naught escapes being twisted and messed, Their own souls included, on matters of interest. Ignorant, superficial, malignant, self-deceived, Ashamed to bear, but proud to be bereaved, Devoted to truth's medals, but dismayed to see its flesh— Babies are born to them in prams and crêches. Lip-honouring peace, by their indignant whispers Others they desecrate, their own insure, in their smug vespers. At mattins for their own sins pray to be forgiven, Revelling in others while walking home from heaven. Martrylike suffer for transgressions of the parish, Or say they do, particularly the most garish. But humbly at their bedside never hope that Jesus has destroyed Others' misfortunes wholly, lest themselves be unemployed. Such and so balsting are their faded Joys Which Time, nor Sickness, never quite destroys. Balder and balder every haircut Cutting a caper as lewd as he dare cut, Quasiphilosophically Capricorn carouses Ill at ease in such respectable houses, The disinherited soul of an atrabilious Semi self-deprecating paterfamilias. With many eyeglitters at women's legs in stockings And at the schoolboys' furtive corybantic eyecockings, His Bacchanalian belly he wobbles like a sack with metaphysical justification as Dionysiac, And ungenteel jokes undoubtedly due to his strabismus Distorting even the quaint festivities of Christmas. Remembering in the artificial afternoon Old days when Pan his saxophonic tune Under the ilex played, and how the figwood image Nimbly swayed in the nights of lustful scrimmage, And how in pleased surprise he uttered several Eurekas At finding the gross fungus Ithyphallus Impudicus. With him his father's hair his father's scalp reveals Commensurate, with scratching too much during silent meals, With virgin's blood the holly on the wall Drips. As from Druid branches fail to fall Light, intense pearl juices from alabaster fitting, The proper tight-drawn hostess cuts unwitting Symbols of fertility from Christmas cake. All jollity Is fastened down. Only innocent frivolity Saturnalia is allowed in houses of good quality. Tiddledywog. Meh, meh. The door bursts open wide The Sunday china stands up horrified. Tiddledywog. Meh, meh. All he has ever remembered Bulges out like a plaster panel badly distempered. Tiddledywog. Meh, membrum caprinum erexit: Culpabat, alia aliam, quia ipsa conspexit. Tiddledywog. Tiddledywog. Tiddledywog. First he puts under the mat Persian cat and Pekinese dog. Then the tables' and chairbacks' torselling Smashes, and piles on potsherds of Worcester porcelain. Tiddledywog. Tiddledywog. Forefeet dangling like clappers Dancing about he grips the frightened flapper's Flaxen coils, throws to the ground and violates her. Which done she becomes he: he hates her, And turning on the boy, knocks his eyes out, Strips him, and using sinewy tail as a knout Flogs the boy till he eddies and faints. And the mother faints, Whom Capricorn props up upon the chintz And bathing her forehead with cold milk and tea Reverses coldness that used to be. But when she recovers, recovers himself and batters The woman to death. This seems to mend matters. Next pausing somewhat incommoded by his toils, The carpets, cushions, colour schemes he soils. Last in fierce memory of dislocate desire The house itself he dislocates with fire. Scatters the redhot imitation coals Over this mortuary of human souls. The imitation furniture goes up in smoke And well fired china serves as admirable coke. Like wood distilled that dribbles clammily Oozes the ectoplasm of his burning family. Various vermicular disseminations

Bewildered Saint of the curse, bulbous

Dress like you care! Eat like you care! Care like you care! You don’t think apples just grow on trees, do you? • A fish taps a clam against a bony knob of coral to crack its shell — which demonstrates intelligence yes, but is the fish pleased with itself? • Alone in your crib, you form syllables. Are you happy when one is like another? Add yourself to yourself. Now you have someone.

Hef brings me flowers tiger lilies, ochre veined downcast, sleek black cups small shadows, are the puckers in his pyjamas where his skin caves in tired profligate, I sigh and pour the oil along your circular sheets thinking of all the times, or women on this bed glossy old bunnies I imagine their breasts, plate of fried eggs, a row of tonsured monks’ heads his tongue slithers, gaunt voluptuary, ugly old man, my eyes close when I roll his name Ner. along my tongue, like the line of cold test tubes thin bottled semen, he wants to plant it, deeply in my flat belly Hugh junior, and, or Carietta, a child is packed in dry blue ice in silk pyjamas they have an emperor’s crest it is dark in there but it’s cold as the green jacuzzi, bubbles are clouds on its face I will crush the glass with the fingers in his back and pile on my rings and all the fur coats and move down the circular stairs, bloated with gold the flowers are a venus-flytrap, with red curls flames and noxious breath his betrayal gives me granite fists, girls scatter movie stars crumple as I run away, from the gaudy prison cell, of tinsel and skin I’ll sue him and write and build a home, in the desert, on the sun a sequined empress, a mirage—in loungewear and harlequin glasses

A Ballad of the Republic, Sung in the Year 1888 The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day; The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play. And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game. A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast; They thought if only Casey could but get a whack at that— We’d put up even money now with Casey at the bat. But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake, And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake; So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat, For there seemed but little chance of Casey’s getting to the bat. But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all, And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball; And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred, There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third. Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell; It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell; It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat, For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat. There was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place; There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile on Casey’s face. And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat, No stranger in the crowd could doubt ’twas Casey at the bat. Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt; Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt. Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip, Defiance gleamed in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip. And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air, And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there. Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped— “That ain’t my style,” said Casey. “Strike one,” the umpire said. From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar, Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore. “Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted some one on the stand; And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Casey raised his hand. With a smile of Christian charity great Casey’s visage shone; He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on; He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew; But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, “Strike two.” “Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud; But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed. They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain, And they knew that Casey wouldn’t let that ball go by again. The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clinched in hate; He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate. And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go, And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow. Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light, And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout; But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.