Don't go shopping for prescription glasses
when you're mad at your boss.
You'll end up coming home with
don't f*ck with me glasses
that you'll regret!
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Bare bear Bayer
A naked big pharma omnivore
Covered in hair
Soul sole Seoul
The bottom of a Korean spirit’s foot
Out for a stroll
Right write rite
A well-prepared nuptial sermon
Gripping but light
Si see sea
Affirmatively spying the ocean waves
Pleasant and free
Lye lie lai
A burning falsehood sung in style
I must ask why
Seen seine scene
The visualized setting of a fisherman’s netting
Trawler’s routine
Pare pair pear
Trimming a duo of summer fruit
Sweet treat to share
here’s your plaque:
best in uniformity & public shaming.
no rooster crows without committee review.
no similes unless they match the mulch.
you scratch the dirt,
then vote on who gets corn-fed
when there's plenty to go around.
not every poem is a zoning dispute,
and I'm hard pressed to name anyone here
an expert in the field. get over yourselves.
she left.
what was the point of that?
you ran off a chance to learn something,
or worse,
ran off a chance to help a lonely person
in need, masquerading what they want to be.
we'll never know now.
all this for what?
the abject terror of an electron less
of validation? grow the f*ck up.
I see you,
paper-bagging praise like contraband,
while circling the coop,
searching for a beak to clip.
I'm going to bed now,
to dream of that first welcome
I had three years ago.
My sincerest hope
is that you'll meet me there.
Spine chilling velocity
Willing feverish ferocity
Pollution spilling atrocity
Pushes our buttons
Top billing forging
Fiendish drilling pomposity
Gluttons gorging in the isles of muttons
Coining the term “purloining”
Plunder even here down under
Cast asunder..can hear the thunder
In the proud land of
The long white cloud
Scold from the fold to heal
But won’t listen..do a deal
Gaudy gems appeal..glisten
History sold for pieces of gold
Cower to phoney crony power
Dour Parasites roll the dice
Show pony baloney hour
Off their heads...now divining
Mining our whining sea beds..
Palaver of scour..devour and sour
Splice our shining slice of paradise
Vice rather than stories of glories told
Voraciously gobbling veracity
Audaciously hobbling precocity
Generosity wobbling even in the home
Of lengthy Cumulus Curiosity…
Not being funny
In this Land of Milk & Honey
Won’t kowtow to the cash cow
Getting out of hand
Because the answer forever
Whatever will never ever
Be just money!
Cornelius McGillicuddy Mack
You can’t make up a name like that
At baseball he took a loud whack
(Managing the A’s to 3,731 wins)
~ Suit-and-tie, teetotalling aristocrat
"The Maiden's Song" or "The Bridal Morn" is an ancient Middle English poem about a young girl, a bride, on the morning after her wedding day.
The Maiden’s Song aka The Bridal Morn
anonymous Medieval lyric
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
The maidens came to my mother’s bower.
I had all I would, that hour.
The bailey beareth the bell away;
The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.
Now silver is white, red is the gold;
The robes they lay in fold.
The bailey beareth the bell away;
The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.
Still through the window shines the sun.
How should I love, yet be so young?
The bailey beareth the bell away;
The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.
I take this to be a naughty, suggestive poem, but one that makes us feel sympathy for a young bride, quite possibly a child bride.
Keywords/Tags: maiden, mother, mother and daughter, bailey, beareth, bell, lily, rose, silver, gold, robes, sun, love, young, youth, girl, bower, bridal shower, wedding, woman, women,
Monsieur, said she
demure
Madame, replied he
lovely coiffure
Garcon, said she
table for two
Caviar and wine, said he, for me
Madame, Vos vilst du?
Go away! Go away! I'm never letting you in!
You're nothing but a walking, slimy, horny ball of sin
You let drugs use you up 'til you're bouncing off the walls
You're 21 years old! I'm 39 years old! You're killing me, Smalls!
Go fvck with people of your own minuscule age
You still have to play with baby witches - I'm a fvcking Mage
You're barely older than my own son
I'm way too far out of your league, hon
Didn't you get it the first 50x when I didn't answer for you?
You're creeping on me - being a proper stalker, dude
Seriously though, I haven't notified law enforcement yet
How about my entire existence you just magically forget?
I even paid you $25 to fvck off, once!
Go sit in that corner, child, wear that hat - DUNCE!!
I have no bloody use to ever see your pathetic face again
No, "AKA. Turbo," I don't want to be your friend
You're the kind of little boy who screws his friends' moms
Gross - "AKA. Turbo," everything about your existence is wrong
No wonder why you're homeless without a home
'Cause you won't respectfully leave people the fvck alone!
old Gooseberry
biding his time
sending the reaper
to collect the damned
sitting on his throne
unconcerned, unhurried
choosing new minions
for tomorrow’s soul collections
To keep his mind off his father's woes
Hunter became a Trumper
Soon his left foot started drumming
~ It 'mis-heard' he was a ‘Thumper’
Notus so wet & wild
Eurus a dryer warm child
Zephryus a sudden gale
Boreas brutal outside the icy pale
A tongue can lick
And a foot can kick ~
Whence cometh yon vapors
Being bigger, better, faster, stronger
These modern times, a far cry from
Being saner, kinder, gentler, wiser,
Are a cancerous race to satisfy the insatiable.
With our advance into abundance
We have lost touch
With the old world
Of tradition, balance, moderation, restraint.
Instead we now have all that we dream,
Each of us a Midas
Able to grasp
If not ever hold.
Able to spoil and pervert
All that we touch, taste, and feel
The everyday and mundane
With the rare and exceptional.
Now we each deserve it all
To have our cake and eat it too
With all the lust and greed, envy and resentment
That comes with limitless expectation.
No longer tempered in desire
By limits
Self or other imposed
We grasp for the highest fruit.
Confident as in a dream
We will fly
When we lose our grip
And fall.
(11/23/23)
When the Devil shows his hospitality
And tempts you with your own resentment
Do you flee, fight or freeze,
Or simply laugh and offer your hand
In gratitude.
(11/20/23)
("Eye of Newt", 2020, original encaustic)
All Things Fall Apart (aka Everything is Nothing)
All things fall apart
because all things
naturally self-destruct
as entropy exerts its shadowy force.
Order, or whatever we posit as non-chaos
is thus fleeting
held up by causes and conditions
that are themselves fleeting.
Thus the shadow of non-existence
permeates all form, all thought,
all notion of existence,
as its true nature.
All things fall apart
through self-destruction
because they never existed
in the first place.
What is this shadowy entropy?
A lack at the heart of existence
who’s existence can only be seen
in its fleeting forms.
And yet, forms arise continuously,
as merely labeled things
in ordered appearance
for our fleeting enjoyment and use.
The question then is,
“What is the creative force?”
Ah, the mystery of mind
vainly searching for itself.
(10/29/23)
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