YOU ASKED FOR IT! YOU GOT IT!

My last post featured poetry which one of you commented that you wanted more of. So, it is by popular demand (who am I to deny my adoring readers?) that my Fats friend and I are bound to reply:

The initials of that reader are mm. No, mistermuse isn’t the mm who asked for more. If you must know, it was magicmermaid, who I assume is a real person (not that mistermuse isn’t real — as real, at least, as magicmermaid….or as you, for that matter). You are real, aren’t you? — if not, just pretend you are, because mistermuse can use the reassurance.

THE FAUX PAS OF POSITIVE THINKING

“Doubt is not a pleasant mental state, but certainty is a ridiculous one.” –Voltaire

I can live with
Uncertainty and doubt —
It’s know-it-alls
I have my doubts about.

THE PETER PRINCIPLE

“I am not young enough to know everything.” –Sir James M. Barrie (author of the play subtitled The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up)

Sorry that things didn’t quite Pan out
(except in Neverland….or thereabout).

HOW TO BETTER CULTIVATE KNOWLEDGE

“Scholars esteem knowledge not for its use in attaining other values, but as a value in itself.” –Max Eastman

Know,
Weigh,

Hoe
Say.

KNOW PROBLEM

“If reality wants to get in touch, it knows where I am.” –Phil Proctor

But if reality says,
“Hello there, it’s me” —
How would you know
Absent a show of real ID?

 

 

 

 

 

 

FOR THE TIME BEING

It’s been some time since I laid some poetry on you, but all good things must end (i.e., your luck has run out). What I’m getting at is, I’ve decided to resurrect a few old poems, as well as come up with a new one or two. If you object, you have the right to remain Soylent* because….

*Soylent: foodstuff made of soybeans and lentils

A POEM OF EXCEPTIONAL TASTE

Soybeans and lentils — what a treat!
I can think of nothing I’d rather eat!*
Just savor the flavor — they can’t be beat*….
But then, I’m a groundhog, so I don’t eat meat.

*except for watermelon: https://riversworld.live/2020/09/04/summer-means-watermelon/

I’LL TAKE A BRAINCHECK

“The difference between intelligence and wisdom is that intelligence is knowing half of what you hear or read is garbage, and wisdom is knowing which half.” –Seymour Fisher

From dilemmas of that class,
You’ll have to exempt me —
I’m still stuck on “Is the glass
Half full or half empty?”

WISE-ASS PLATITUDES

Utmost is the wisdom of the platitude —
But most, sadly, are lacking in latitude.
Is there never need for deviance?
I think I shall file a grieviance!
The grounds? Let’s just say they have an ATTITUDE.

LONG TIME, NO SEE

Youth is the stuff of time and place
The race of years cannot erase,
Seen through eyes too unwise to see
That all was not what it seemed to be.

Age is the stuff of hedging bets,
Of things undone and old regrets,
Seeing ourselves as others do,
Thinking “And so, what else is new?”

 

TRUMP IN A NUTSHELL

He can’t bother to feel his fellow man’s pain —
It means nothing to him, if there’s nothing to gain.

He has no need to keep track of his legion of lies —
Who can keep up with/swat down ceaseless swarms of flies?

He doesn’t believe that certain ‘difFerEnt’ people belong —
He doesn’t even see difference between right and wrong.

What does he believe? That’s easy to see —
He believes above all that “It’s all about ME.”

 

 

PRIME RHYME, NO FIB (AND THAT’S THE RIB)

How about something I’ve not done for some time:
Post a post so sublime, it don’t do nothing but rhyme.
If I chose prose that’s verbose — longer than a rose is not a nose —
What woes ‘twould expose, such that who knows how big it grows?

Thus I propose, pun in hand, to avoid overflows
And sink to new lows, to the confusion of my foes.
So, friends, meat my poems that may stop on a dime;
Just remember this tickler: not all ribs are prime.

I WILL ONLY STOOP SO LOW

I don’t do windows;
I don’t do lawns —
But when I doo-doo,
I do do johns.

AGE BE FOR BEAUTY

Bald is beautiful —
Or, so they say —
But my head is only
Bald half-way.

Thus, I look forward,
The more I age,
To looking better
At every stage.

POST MORT ‘EM

The world, it go to pot;
Life literate is shot.
O, woe is my bon mot….
Bon mort, and thanks a lot!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HAIKU!….GESUNDHEIT!

Pardon me while I celebrate INTERNATIONAL HAIKU POETRY DAY. Haiku, as you know, is a three-line poem of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, which happens to total 17, which happens to be this day of the month, which happens to be INTERNATIONAL I-Already-Told-You-What DAY. So, here are a few lowbrow examples of haiku, guaranteed to ruin your appetite for haiku for the for-eatable future. If you have trouble swallowing any of these, feel free to wash it down with a swig of your favorite beverage, followed by a quart of milk of magnesia. If that doesn’t relieve your groan, you’re on your own.

ONE TOO MANY (syllables)

Excuses may be
easy to make…but they don’t
make up for your mistake.

A NEAR MYTH

Once upon a time
I tried to make a haiku
rhyme. Maybe next time.

HAIKU ON THE HUSTINGS

Politician beams,
waves to crowd of strange faces…
he’s been here before.

Had enough? Believe it or not, it could always be worse:

 

 

 

BALD AND FREE — HOW CAN THAT BE? (subtitle: The Bald And The Beautiful)

Nothing makes a woman feel as old as watching the bald spot increase on the top of her husband’s head. –Helen Rowland

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Oct. 7 is BALD AND FREE DAY, but personally, I’m not sure what one has to do with the other. I’m mostly bald, all right, but how free is a married man like me? Of course, I’m just kidding — my wife lets me out of my cage for an hour a week, even though I keep getting balder….and making her feel older. Maybe I shouldn’t be using that hour to get a haircut.

HEADLONG RETREAT

As the years go by, my barber
Takes less and less time with my hair
Which only serves to remind me
That there’s less and less of it there.

To be sure, I’m not the only one whose predicament may become a hair-raising experience:

That gave me a headache just watching it. If only I could trust the dubious ads that involve spending my moo-lah to get to the root of the problem, I might risk springing for mo-hair….but snake oil aside, there must be a less painful way to restore a Lost Hairy zone:

Hmm. I wonder whether that great humanit-hairian, Donald Trump, would mind parting with some of his spare hair if I could dig up some skullduggery by his political opponents? For example, much corruption has been reported in the Caribbean nation of Hairti — and it’s surely a lock that all of the Democratic Presidential contenders are involved. All I’d have to do is send my nosey friend, Fruity Giuliani, there on behalf of our Pres with a quid pro-boscis that the Pres of Hairti can’t ignore.

On second thought, if Agent Orange went to my head, my wife might think I’m losing it along with my hair. I might as well keep to my cage, skip my weekly trip to the clip joint, and try to console myself that, after all is said and done….

Now, if I can only convince my wife.

THE ART OF BAD POETRY

Oscar Wilde quote: “All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.” Maybe so, but you can’t blame a guy for trying.

A few days ago, in pondering the possibility of posting a post of putrid poetry for BAD POETRY DAY (August 18th), I took the precaution of reviewing a decade (my blog began in 2009) of August posts to make sure I hadn’t previously perpetrated poetic perfidy on unsuspecting readers on this day. Unluckily for you , I found that I’ve never posted a post on Aug. 18, so we’re good to go….make that, I’m good to go. Or bad to go. You have to stay, because if you don’t, you’ll break my poor art — and that wouldn’t be polite.

Perhaps you think that my calling bad poetry an art
doesn’t pass the smell test, like calling passing gas a fart.

Not to put you on the spot, but was that a bad-ass poem, or what?
Granted, it has a perfect rhyme, but is that such a crime?
As bad poetry, I still say it’s sublime….speaking of which, I’ll have you know there are actually high-class contests to determine how low a bad poem can get, such as:

With that behind us, it’s time we get back to sum-more of my cool august poetry:

CLOCKING OUT

Hickory, dickory, dock,
The doc ran up the rock.
The rock was more slippery
Than doc’s hickory dickory,
So down he fell, which cleaned his clock.

HAIR APPARENT

A Whig party wig
Is my saving grace —
It diverts your gaze
Away from my face.

I WILL ONLY STOOP SO LOW

I don’t do windows,
I don’t do lawns —
But when I doo-doo,
I do do johns.

And with that, I bid you a fond adieu-doo.

 

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOT TALK?

When I was young, I never thought about getting old (a stage of life known as having one foot in the grave — almost curtains). So, having two feet in the grave was the last thing on my mind. Now I’m a senior citizen, and I’m still not ready to kick the bucket, but my feet are killing me like I am about to kick bucket — or, with my luck it (this bucket) kicks me:

Foot cramps, ingrown toenails, fungus among-us, smelly feet (you know this from my last post) — it’s like I got my feet at the Bad Feet Store. You name it, my feet are treating me like a heel. Don’t laugh — someday you may walk in my shoes, and then you’ll know the agony of de feet and be the sole of remorse for not seeing fit to empathize. But I guess you’ll cross that footbridge when you come to it.

Having retired from a desk job, I didn’t spend most of my life upon my feet, so my tootsies aren’t letting me down because of being mistreated. Likewise, I’ve seldom, if ever, worn high heels (I may have BEEN a heel a time or two, but that’s a different story). I don’t know — maybe I’m finally footing the bill for writing such poems as this:

All humans have more than one foot,
Unless one has less than two.
One can trust I count two on me —
More or less, can one count on you?

Groan. I guess my days of being this are over:

 

 

NO BRAINER DAY

I think, therefore I am. –René Descartes 
I overthink, therefore I post. –mistermuse

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Lately, I’ve been burning too much mental energy cooking up posts to roast Trump (e.g., I almost said toast rump); the heat is turning my face red and giving me the thinking blues:

Frankly, friends, I think I need to cool it before the strain becomes a drain on my brain and gives me a pain. Fortunately, Feb. 27 is NO BRAINER DAY — a perfect day to post a post which requires little or no thinking. But before you Trump reprobates snidely ask how that would make this post any different from my previous posts, answer me this: how much thought do you think The Donald gives his tweets? Even a smart-ask Trumpite should allow that mistermuse be entitled to one day of devoting the same paucity of gray matter to his post that your Orange Oligarch devotes to his tweets every day.

With that in mind, I’m giving the rest of this tome over to posting what others thought when they thought about thinking/not thinking. Do I think their thinking will make you think you’re thinking what I’m thinking about thinking/not thinking? Just a thought.

So, let’s get quoting before I change my mind and start thinking again:

I think that I think; therefore, I think I am. –Ambrose Bierce

[I think that I think, therefore] I yam what I yam. –Popeye the Sailor Man

There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking. –Thomas Edison

Ours is an age which is proud of machines that think, and suspicious of men who try to. –Howard Mumford Jones

The best way [for a woman] to win a man is to make him think you think as much of him as he does. –Evan Esar

In America, we say what we think, and even if we can’t think, we say it anyhow. –Charles F. Kettering

In closing, did you know Rodin’s THE THINKER was originally called THE POET:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thinker

I happen to know that THE POET didn’t appreciate the name change, thus this reaction:

Mused The Poet to a passing skunk,
“What good is being called The Thinker?
To some day convey the aura of a President,
It should Don the wrap, like you, of The Stinker.”

 

 

READ MY LIPS POEM

Here in the American Midwest, waking up to sub-zero lows the past few mornings reminded me of a poem I wrote one January more than two dozen frozen winters ago, titled WINTERDREAM….so I dug the poem out of cold storage, blew the snow (or was it dust?) off it, and re-read it for the first time in some time. As I did, it dawned on me that, although published before (both in paper journals and online), perhaps it could stand one more exposure. Then, near poem’s end, I re-came upon the word “lips”….and that settled it (reference the last two sentences of my last post, LIPS SERVICE). Here, then, one last time, is….

WINTERDREAM

Suppose a homeless man
found a tattered hat,
abandoned, like himself,
to the elements….
and in that tattered hat,
tucked inside the band,
a winning lottery ticket
could transform his life;

but first, he must see it –
and then, seeing it,
not toss it to the wind,
as life had tossed him.
Let us further suppose
the deadline to claim
its prize came at midnight
of that very day.

That night, in winter’s turn,
the man had a dream
that he could live his life
starting all over again,
knowing as much at birth
as he knew this moment,
so that all the choices
and hidden chances
of wasted turning points
lay exhumed ahead….

but the thought made him
cringe: regret was a fire
that gave pain without heat.
He awoke in cold sweat
to the taste of blown snow
on the cracks of his lips,
and pulled down the brim
of yesterday’s fortune.
What luck to have found
a buffer against fate.