Once in while I decide that some of my thoughts are so delicately abstruse, so vaguely confounding, so esoteric, that the only possible way to express them is through poetry. It is at these times that I sit down and pen my most insightful and eloquent missives to the world. Here now, for your edification, is my three most recentest poems.
Death Be Not Such A Schmuck
Death be not such a schmuck.
Though many fear thee they are not right,
For thy ineptitude ist quite commonly a sight.
Two winters ago didst thou try to smite
My cousin Fred with a bolt from the heavens bright.
Yet didst he live! So, Death, where is thy might?
Thou didst unto Aunt Mary deliver a heart attack most scary!
Yet the old bird her wings continues to flap in a manner most merry,
And to squawk incessantly about her insipid canary!
O’ Death, how sick am I of thy incompetence incendiary!
Father didst thou into an overheated spa cause to tumble and fall,
Delivering squeals of glee and delight unto all.
Yet from boiling cauldron wast he plucked by uncle Saul!
O’ Death, why hast thou such gall?
Grandma seemed destined to discard her mortal load.
Yet, while the stove thou didst explode,
Causing her to bounce off the walls like a flaming toad,
She didst not croak. O’ Death, how thy ineptness dost my ire goad!
So, Death, be not such a schmuck.
When delivering the final knell,
‘Tis thy appointed duty and thou must do it well.
If thou dost not, we shall all have to abide another thanksgiving hell.
Whereupon thou shalt find, o’ Death, that if smited with yon hefty dumbbell,
Thou shalt spend an eternity in intensive care, tending to many a laceration and swell!
Toadstools
Late one misty night,
Very lightly, very creepily,
We take hold,
As on a week-old donut
Does mold.
And slowly we grow,
In dark places
Of which man does not know.
We feed on water, on loam,
And occasionally on a forgotten tome.
We push with all our might,
Nudging our wee noses into the light.
We wait stealthily.
So many of us, so many of us!
Smiling and lurking,
Till, eager and unwise, you creep into the wild,
Clutch us up and take us home, to sauté, and to greedily gulp.
Then you twist and turn, like dancing pretzels,
Till you fall in a heap, as if your heads had
Been struck by kettles.
We shall by the end of spring
Inherit the earth.
For our foot’s in the door,
And all your bodies, like discarded pizza,
Are moldering on the floor.
Big, Annoying Black Bird At The Stroke of Midnight
Once upon a midnight dreary, as my brain grew weak and bleary,
Sleepily decided I that to sleep I must go.
‘Neath much lethargy I arose and shuffled to the window,
Wishing to close it lest
The winter cold drift in and chill my breast.
Finding it mysteriously stuck, I craned out, at this enigma fearing.
Long I stood there, my head nodding, my eyes into the darkness peering.
In time, I muttered one solitary word, floated it into the night’s inky core…
“Lenore?”
For that younger sibling was fond of a prank, or two, or even more.
Fast, she once glued my bedroom door!
Suddenly, startling me with many a flirt and a flutter,
In swooshed a raven! A big, sleek and black nutter!
Haughtily, he didst perch on the bust of Punch just above my chamber door.
He perched, and preened his feathers, and nothing more.
Desirous of my nightly respite, and wishing to soundly snore,
Of this intruder fluttering into my sanctum I didst implore,
“O’ feathered creature, thou art not Lenore!
Hasten now, out into the night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the raven,
“Sir, thou art a bore!”
Startled, or something near, was I at such eloquence to hear
From a creature wandered in from the Stygian moor!
Though the phrase in its intent was demonstrably poor,
Pilfered from some owner who on his hosts much scorn did pour.
Nonetheless, its rudeness was surely uncalled for,
So I didst utter once more,
“O’ big, annoying black bird at the stroke of midnight,
Get thee out into the Plutonian shore,
For ‘tis late at night and I wish to be awake no more!”
Imperious bird that he was, he tilted his head and gravely declared,
“Sir, thou art a bore!”
Imprudent was I, to attempt colloquy with my obsidian guest,
For with such as him there can be no intellectual rapport.
But even a knave may have more than one tactic in store,
So to him the remnants of my dinner I bore.
“O’ big, annoying black bird at the stroke of midnight,
Remove thyself from yon clown and of my repast thou canst have a bite!”
At me he lowered his head, his eyes burning with a disdain I could not account for.
“What troubles you, sir? Dost thou chicken abhor?”
“Oh! I do beg your pardon sir, my inattention I deplore!”
“Perhaps for you a cup of nepenthe I could pour?”
Quoth the raven,
“Sir, thou art a bore!”
Hesitating then no longer, I eschewed hospitality for something stronger.
I groped for a nearby censer, which was lying on the floor,
And hurled it at my grim and ghastly caller, thus declaring war.
But the ebony bird evaded the censer, and it cracked the wall, defiling my décor!
A shoe, an umbrella and several volumes of forgotten lore,
All this I hurled at the ungainly fowl who out of my chamber refused to soar.
But all these he eluded, then fluttered back down onto the bust above my door,
And I could swear he smirked, as he uttered the words
“Sir, thou art a bore!”
Concluding that the musket in my closet I could no longer ignore,
I drew it forth and aimed it in his direction, then, with something of a roar,
Didst make it evident, not that I hadn’t heretofore,
That his presence I would countenance no more.
“Get thee out into the night’s Plutonian shore, thou demon-spore,
For hosting thee hast become a most unpleasant chore.
And if thou dost not, thou shalt find thyself plucked and roasted,
Like a pheasant in days of yore.”
Mightily didst the creature’s eyes dilate, as through him the words tore.
And as, at long last, he flew off the bust of Punch just above my chamber door,
He could be heard to utter, as he swooped out into the night’s stygian shore,
”Sheesh, all you had to do was ask! There’s no need for gore!”
And that big, annoying black bird, that at the stroke of midnight I could not ignore,
That ghastly grim and ancient visitor from the night’s Plutonian shore,
Shall, with any luck, annoy me – nevermore.
