Best Obscenity Poems
An Obscenity Trial
by Michael R. Burch
The defendant was a poet held in many iron restraints
against whom several critics cited numerous complaints.
They accused him of trying to reach the "common crowd,"
and they said his poems incited recitals far too loud.
The prosecutor alleged himself most stylish and best-dressed;
it seems he’d never lost a case, nor really once been pressed.
He was known far and wide for intensely hating clarity;
twelve dilettantes at once declared the defendant another fatality.
The judge was an intellectual well-known for his great mind,
though not for being merciful, honest, sane or kind.
Clerics called him the "Hanging Judge" and the critics were his kin.
Bystanders said, "They'll crucify him!" The public was not let in.
The prosecutor began his case
by spitting in the poet's face,
knowing the trial would be a farce.
"It is obscene,"
he screamed,
"to expose the naked heart!"
The recorder (bewildered Society)
greeted this statement with applause.
"This man is no poet.
Just look: his Hallmark shows it.
Why, see, he utilizes rhyme, symmetry and grammar!
He speaks without a stammer!
His sense of rhythm is too fine!
He does not use recondite words
or conjure ancient Latin verbs.
This man is an imposter!
I ask that his sentence be
the almost perceptible indignity
of removal from the Post-Modernistic roster."
The jury left in tears of joy, literally sequestered.
The defendant sighed in mild despair,
"Please, let me answer to my peers."
But how His Honor giggled then,
seeing no poets were let in.
Later, the clashing symbols of their pronouncements drove him mad
and he admitted both rhyme and reason were bad.
***
A well-known poet criticized this poem for being "journalistic." But then the poem is written from the point of view of a journalist who's covering the trial of a poet. The poem was completed by the end of my sophomore year in college.
i'll be damned and i'll be forlorn
but I've never seen a green sheep shorn
like mowing the grass
off a chia pet's back
they say that's the way they were born
I shall live the rest of my life in serenity
With beautiful thoughts filling my mind,
A desire to love and be loved is my affinity.
Some may say this lofty goal an extremity
No doubt, some will bitter criticism find,
I shall live the rest of my life in serenity.
I have never sought the fame of celebrity
And, I have no jealousy of that kind,
A desire to love and be loved is my affinity.
I have found nothing surpasses integrity,
While fostering those filial ties that bind
I shall live the rest of my life in serenity.
Life, I find, comes with a prized amenity
When to live the noble life, one is resigned
A desire to love and be loved is my affinity.
Anything less would be a rank obscenity
Present and hereafter could not be aligned,
I shall live the rest of my life in serenity
A desire to love and be loved is my affinity.
written December 17, 2021
getting off the d-train one morning
@ the 125th st. nicholas stop
&
walking toward the soup kitchen
where i was going to work that
day
i saw a young girl of maybe 6, 7 or 8
(i’m not good with age)
sleeping underneath a black garbage
bag---
she was sleeping outside the soup
kitchen,
no doubt, waiting for it to open---
& when i had crossed the street
completely
she rustled and got up from where she had been
laying
and moved out from in front of the
establishment
whose large gates were still drawn down &
locked.
what can there be said about this image
that would make it any more clear in your
mind?
when she was walking quickly away
i wondered where she was going &
what would become of her---like
any person with an ounce of
compassion in them
would---
still, i felt as ineffectual as a doorstop that
won’t keep a door open.
because when you don’t have money yourself
to pay your own rent & you are living in
an american city
where you walk past people who have been
forgotten
or
ignored
or worse yet,
they are being pushed away, out from in front of
stores on 5th avenue & the like
you are crushed by the weight of
hopelessness---
when you understand that there isn’t
enough that one person can
possibly do---
& no matter how much your heart could
bleed
you are still just one person---
and in a manner of speaking,
you become just another component in a
failed system
in a
failed city
that perpetuates its cruel reality in a
failed country
that has left nothing to the imagination
when it comes to
neglect.
this vulgar truth
more profane than anything your ugly mouth
could ever muster
smacks you in the face as if someone
blindsided you with a baseball bat & like a
domino falling---about to hit the next &
then follow, colliding, one
after the
other---
you might find yourself sick to death of the
obscenity of it
all---
wanting to burn it all down
& to start over.
Hate
In civilized quarters, an outrageous obscenity:
Unwashed, perishing pant
And, for real, a dismaying insanity,
When a hater heatedly rants
At his subject of unusual dislike,
Whom he would’ve loved to strike:
His heart hammering vessel –damaging beats,
His head contending with an ache a doctor treats.
With hate, nothing is normal any more,
Haters best action, an unsightly sore,
With glances that like dagger stab
And fast breathing that would air grab
And reflections on hundreds of things
United by Death with wings!
Hate is the firmest shutting
Of the outlet to delicate love
And trust me - mortifying hitting
Of a non owner of even one boxing glove.
Knowledge of enemy’s demolishing fate
And serial number on Satan’s punitive slate
Comes with the Supreme Hate
Also, how long his success shall have to wait
Plus the exact date
Of the unlocking on his behalf of cemetery’s gate.
Some insane person is planning a conspiracy
against us to weaken our bond of friendship,
and this malicious person is attacking us
with vulgar and unsound comments,
which aren't as ironic as he thinks;
let us all give the delirious bully
a strong dose of our reality...
by declaring his insanity!
Police must track this maniac down,
put him behind bars for his vulgarity
and death threats meant for this community;
freedom of speech is deliberately being abused
with constant obscenities lashed at us
by this undesired member full of hostility...
a misanthrope speaks obscenity
to express his unexplainable hatred and envy;
and the wider attention he gets, the sooner he's gratified!
Devoted poets, continue writing your beautiful verses,
and ignore his wasted energy on deliberate foolishness;
the real satisfaction doesn't come from a vindictive attitude,
but by letting justice make him feel the harshness of its law!
Look at the bright side...he will be caught and and charged accordingly;
and do not attempt to pity him when is convicted of his crime...
we have warned him many times, but he wouldn't heed or comply;
And who needs a sociopath, who disturbs the peace and disrupts creativity?
Copyright 2009 by Andrew Crisci
7/14/2025
Humane?
You pen with shame!
Selling your dignity?
Tell me, why trash your only voice?
No, thanks!