Best Publican Poems
We called Jimmy strange; we teased him in play,
most of the time he'd laugh our cheek away.
We'd dare him to play pool; always loser pay!
So we played pool for nothing each day.
One night a stranger who did not understand,
called to the publican we all should be banned.
He took Jimmy's cue; he saw what's going on,
telling us what we’re doing to Jimmy is wrong.
The stranger was right, but Jimmy don't mind,
in his eyes we’re his friends; he saw us as kind.
The stranger exposed his friendship; Jimmy ran home.
We argued our point and left the stranger alone.
Late into that night, a tale of disbelief,
“Come down to the hotel for its full of grief.
Jimmy's locked in a room and somewhere he’s got
a gun that he’s fired. The stranger’s been shot!”
With the innocence lost of Jim’s simple mind.
If I’d turned my cheek and just stayed behind,
there’d still be the innocence. I’d have calmed Jimmy down.
Murder crushed out the life of my country town.
The law is in place; Jimmy can't understand.
Shouting in the hallway baffled him with demand.
Society must take to Jim where it all seems surreal.
This life he'll leave behind for one of bars of steel.
I stood at the doorway where Jim could hear my voice.
I called “Put the gun down. Jim there’s no other choice.”
Jim turned the key to let me through the door,
then I heard the blast and the thump on the floor.
With the innocence lost of Jim’s simple mind.
If I’d turned my cheek and just stayed behind,
there’d still be the innocence. I’d have calmed Jimmy down.
Suicide crushed out the life of my country town.
American Nero,
showering utter disdain —
Denigration downpour on pleb citizens
begging for pandemic crumbs
As the pestilent fire rages around
your virally tainted kingdom
Ghastly gladly,
you keep on fiddling
acid text madly
Dripping hateful words that burn
deep into the bipolar soul
of a divided nation
An enamel disrobed toga ethos
reveal naked desires
Sparking flames of cold pathos
American Nero,
a contemptible paper reign
is exit poll falling
Whilst the fire of pox chaos
contagiously spread
with spittle accelerant ease
This scorching hoax
raze any flagging, publican hope
Truth unmasked
do singe that gallows rumor rope
Fiery breath fiddler
kindling fear,
high up on that Ivory Tower roof
Tearfully playing the ill-fated fool madly,
as graven torch idolatry
lay fallow ‘neath ash liberty truth
There is a beautiful little village
Down a long rainbow coloured country lane
Known to only a few
Where collective colourful characters reign
The residents of Rainbow Village
Are a creative colourful bunch
Who meet every week religiously
At the local Village Inn for Sunday lunch
Mr Red is the local policeman
He is driven and a natural born leader
Decisive, firm but fair
Authoritative while following police procedure
Policeman Red married Miss White
The villages well loved librarian
An independent calm gentle soul
A compassionate revered humanitarian
Together they have a daughter
A little girl called Pink who is ten years old
A playful ,sensitive, loving child
Adventurous and bold
Dr Brown is the villages doctor
A warm natured, comforting, reliable man
Who is married to Dr Blue the local veterinarian
A kind ,caring dependable bloke who will help anyone he can
Miss Purple is the towns local artist
Beautiful, talented and unique
Unbelievably imaginative and creative
Her colourful creativity is displayed on every cobbled street
Mr Green is Rainbow Villages resident gardener
A young man totally at one with nature and harmony
The village is abound with happy, bright colourful flora
As far as the eye can see
Mr & Mrs Orange are both school teachers
Both are optimistic, enthusiastic and love to teach
Energetic ,cheerful and passionate
Learning and education never far from their minds reach
Mr Grey , l should say Mayor Grey
Has the village and residents best interest at heart
Always calm, composed and diplomatic
Supporting locals with their creativity, colour and art
Miss Yellow runs the village general store
A lovely outgoing lady with a heart of gold
Always trying to accomodate all the residents wants and needs
Her produce is quality so be quick or it will be sold!
Mr Black is the publican of the Rainbow Inn
An intriguing powerful fellow
A somewhat mysterious man
Who is secretly and hopelessly in love with Miss Yellow
Rainbow Village is a wonderful place to reside
Full of incredible interesting and varied folk
Not always do they see eye to eye
Yet come Sunday all gather and unite over lunch and a joke
Life seems-like an ever forbidden story {!!!} one day you're happy, the very
next...{?} "You know the story". Why are we still feeling the wraft of an im-
plicable story? "No Guts No Glory."
Times persistently comes with it sordid details of Up's & Downs. Noone will seek
to explain...(why) the reason. But in all due-season....it seem impossible at times
trying to avoid the difficulties and still maintain one's own sanity. Anyone dare
try to explain...or if you could, does it matter whether or not I'm Democratic or Re
publican. Life is only rewarded Happiness when the common causes of living misg-
uides us to believe in the Unjust Principles of Process. The Process of dealing
w/families and friends and still be befriended as if life punishes you for being Reces
sed. And then no regrets for our our own failures, we as everyday americans still
accept the pain and the gain of fausely do's and don'ts, only to be place in a cell for
breaking manmade law's that never accompblished nothing but...an untold story..(?)
"No Gut's & No Glory."
If I had to tell you the story of my life, its hardship and disappointment or in noway an
attempt to try to explain my in's and out's, my doubts of which has lead me at the
crossroad of good and bad, only to choose the way of my own understanding of
the poor-of-me. "No Guts No Glory"
My golden ego soars higher than yours
I can hold my breath longer underwater
of course,
because my publican lungs are stronger than yours
I can outshout your taxing voice
to the heavens with a prideful text roar
I’m the big button lying king,
that’s for truth ducky sure
Everything I have is bigger than yours
Exaggeration is a lawsuit I wear well,
fancy-laced shegnanians is the shoes I boot you with —
Patent leather pardon free get-out-of-jail
Put a deflecting shine on the witness stand,
make the gullible masses
see me as being smarter than I really am
I bigly roll with the donor class society swells
I take a bigger leak from my Wall Street
inside trader executive bathroom Tower mole tell
My greed is bigger than yours ...
Got great white sharkey needs,
on little flunky guppies I love to gorge
My cyber jaws are bigger than life,
that’s why
Tricky Twitter Moby Dick I
voted for myself ruble roulette twice
I’m a most unpopular populist prez
with no moral boundaries
Don’t try to fence me in,
make me chicken scratch fake news little again
My nihilistic narcissism is bigger than yours,
you best believe
I can sexually harass
better than Willie Boy Clinton
could ever achieve
I’m a business caveman
whose twin brass clubs are bigger than yours
I’ll take your woman,
and with a misogynist leash make her walk on all fours
My serial debts
are bankrupt corrupt much bigger than yours
I bowl a perfect money laundry game
with a mob marked counterfeit score
Mine covetousness is so much bigger than yours
Got more trophy wives than you do,
so king me on the divorce checkerboard
My nuclear button boasts are bombastic bigger than yours ...
and I’ll blow you out the water onto barren refugee shores,
if you don’t lip bow unbutton inflate —
Balloon buffoon infatuate on the dreams I daily tweet snore
Passed the old church at midnight
Night time dark, damp and windy
Thoughts about coming home to a warm bed
Hear sounds from the bushes and trees
Glimpsing human shadows
They move slowly and very quiet
The wind comes against me with a rotten smell
The smell is indescribable nauseating
The lights of a car further down the street
gives me a cruel picture
Three human figures indented and rotting faces
Apathetic and dull but driven by the will to kill
The car is advancing by my side, the driver he knows he's seen it before
Zombies love this place at midnight
Never go here alone on the night of Halloween
Who has not heard of it ....
I can still smell the rotten smell
Sponsor Leonora Galinta
Contest Name Halloween Poem Contest with Only 1 theme.
15.10.2013
A-L Andresen :)
Copyright © All Rights Reserved
(2nd place in the contest)
From Byron bay to Broome on rolling russet plains
beauty shine’s the Kimberly when the northern territory rains
My heart will always weep when the scent of wattle’s lost
gum trees out of sight my world lays unembossed
Kookaburra laughs as dawn lights us with grace
we really love to giggle even wearing egg on face
our words are sometimes drawled but wait theres a but
when we get excited ? is when things start heating up
In Pub’s and R.S.L’s your bound to meet good blokes
even cheeky sheilas who don’t mind a dirty joke
at everything we do we strive to reach the stars
even when we’re older and writing our memoirs
A country mixed in color of every different race
But every one of us Is a heartbeat of this place
creative souls are we building from red soil
everything we have was made from honest spoils
Kooris and the white folk get along alright
but sometimes when they drink they start aground to fight
the old men roar with laughter the ladies are aghast
publican runs yelling hes red enough to blast
Eucalypt and kangaroos are some of our trademarks
if you want to see real beauties our forests cant be past
mountain streams and waterfalls we really have it all
even in a snowfall we’ve had a bloody ball
Whiteness lines our shores kissed with foamy waves
lining round our border is a multitude of caves
rain-forest glistens plants are rich with life
I really hate to see them get in global strife
Cyclones rage our shores fire our summer nights
beauty rests within our hearts and red-gum minds
no different are our faces in this far-reaching world
but because a youthful land we are we’ve bowed our heads to toil
amnesia sets in
selective memory
forgetting the gossip
written in a rhyme
poison inked words
splatter on the screen
to demean
to be mean
misjudge
tattle taler
repeat hater
carries on...
others pics forgotten
other words forgotten
hate fueled
hate sated
the true state
not debated
never stopping to think
could be wrong
has to push down
to be strong
and so it goes on
wrong after wrong
and like the publican
feels good to pray
and say
"Thank God...I'm not like others....a sinner
I'm a winner!"
Morality laden
A chaste maiden
Oh, but erased
is not defaced
there is another record
One with a trace
Seen by another Judge
ONE not common place
a remembered name
a remembered face
and I?
Well, I rest my case....
For I am nothing
but a sinner
in need of grace
Eileen Manassian
Friggity friggity!
MacRaith and O’ Tuama:
poets incessant and
blabbering bores.
Publican served insults –
flibbertigibbeting.
Rhetoric ingrained dull;
flyting supreme!
________________________________________________________
The limerick is an English comedic five-line poem. The form could be found in England as far back as the early part of the 18th-century. It is thought to be derived from the Maigue Poets of Croom, County Limerick (depicted here). When the two erstwhile friends, Sean O’ Tuama and Andrias MacRaith, had a falling out they started trading insults (in rhyme format), ie flyting.
LEXICON
flibbertigibbeting: frivolous, flighty, or excessively talk.
Flyting or fliting is a contest consisting of the exchange of insults between two parties, often conducted in verse.
-
Packed all our bags and into the car
A family of eight a dog from the bar
My father a publican hard worker as wife
deserved all their holidays each year of their life
We struggled and pushed and found a niche seat
a twin on a knee a boy at Mom's feet
Crew cut and bowl shape a haircut to last
A sister and mother rules they would cast
Up the long Highway M6 to the north
In the Welsh mountains and lakes not far from old Borth
Over the Menai to Holy Island port
Holyhead ship the Munster we thought
Seven in the morning up and alight
Sugar loaf mountains pull into sight
Feeling of home of excitement and glee
Twins are a missing Oh toilets you'll see
Down the N4 by Kilcock Dad had said
Mullengar for a draper shop selling sausages and bread
Past by the undertaker at the back of a dump
A chemist is busy selling petrol at pump
Down to the Granny and uncle who dwell
On a farm in the west with cattle and well
Black jack on bee stings and hay to a toss
Kittens and dogs and pine martens the lot
Father so proud doing well to a view
Mother delighted her brother just knew
Working for family his pride and his way
Both gave us good times as children we say
The Publican and the Pharisee went for a walk after church
One wore pride and majesty, the other the marks of the birch
“I say, my man,” said the Pharisee, “will you tell if I come to the pub?”
“Nay, it makes no odds to me, and we do some cracking grub”
The Publican and the Pharisee quaffed back a couple of jars
And then another two, then three, for such is the way in bars
And as they drank their wine, an odd phenomenon occurred
The crown of hubris lost its shine, the marks of the birch became blurred
“I say, my man,” said the Pharisee, “I’m feeling a little *****”
The Publican chuckled, mischievously, “I reckon a short, and some beer”
The Pharisee, unused to drink, began to loose a screw
Became dishevelled, sweaty, pink, made a desperate run for the loo
Got locked in for a while, and had to crawl under the door
Got stuck, well hey, you have to smile, for half an hour or more
Was rescued by some rugby blokes, who loaned him some spare kit
And made up lots of witty jokes, about Pharisees covered in it
The Publican, sat at the bar, surveyed his sorry state
He wondered if he’d gone too far, in setting up his mate
“Just sit,” he said, “and listen well, for this I have to say
If I am surely bound for hell I’ll meet you on the way
You are no better, sir, than I, no better, and no worse
Your spiritual wealth is an arrogant lie, and your pride is a cardinal curse
I’m no angel, I confess, but hypocrisy, mate, I abhor
I reckon I should grovel less, and you just a little bit more”
The Pharisee gave a little nod, and hiccupped in assent
Muttered softly “Sorry God,” and got his coat and went
The Publican then rang the bell, poured out a short and sat
“Oh come on, God, you know the bloke, he really asked for that”
© Gail Foster 2016
Why do you do as you do
and not do as you don't say?
asked the journalist of the leader,
asked the child of her parent.
Because I like to help
and I do not enjoy recognizing myself
as a selfish hypocrite,
responds the leader
to writers of famous and infamous history,
respond therapeutic parents
to children writing compassion stories.
How do you know you are helping
and not helping retain a flawed toxic elitist system,
maintaining poverty of margins
far below wealth piling into too much power?
asked the cynical divestor
challenging this help-as-health investor,
asked the hurt and wounded child
challenging her health-confessing
professing irreligious monoculture.
I doubt I could help
without co-investing in flawed health with pathology
in both political and economic systems,
responds this wu wei leader,
responds this co-mentoring parent,
but what have you noticed
might help more
while collaterally hurting less?
It seems to me,
writes aging journalist
and systemic trauma informed WholeEarth Tribalists,
those plans and budgets and stories cooperatively researched and written
by and with and for co-investors
in our civil passion/pleasure trusting enterprise
sustain more healthy multiculturing mind/body wealth,
with less pathological neurosystemic backwash,
as compared to Business As 0-sum Usual,
anthro-absorbed profit monocultures
elitist Publican winning
to lose further uncapitalized
democratically needy
competitors against too-exclusive empowerment.
Why do you win/win extend co-empathy as you do
and engage compassionate communication
as you would become Earth's Beloved PeaceCommunity?
asked the exhausted leader of retiring generals,
asks indigenously co-intelligent MotherTrees
of their polyculturally extending forests
Root and crown
body and mind therapeutic
politically empowering/disempowering
enlightened/unenlightened economies.
Why do you inclusively co-invest as you do
and not empower what you don't communicate?
asked the journaling child
about her favorite MotherTree's
inter-religious Golden Rule
to optimize effective
and efficient co-governance.
Peter Beechey capped the last bottle, of the latest Lager that he'd brewed.
He's changed his recipe this time, so the argument will be renewed.
He say’s the Lager that I make is not near the standard that he sets,
now we'll argue this for hours until we’re finally making bets.
Stout, lager, bitters labeled; the smell of malt drifts through the shed.
Air-locked and popping through the water; a brew ferments below a head.
Us pair have now refined the art; our little breweries come of age.
No longer do we show impatience - we've stopped bottling hand grenades.
Both of our stocks have built up now and so of course the word soon spreads.
This means the visits from the connoisseurs; blokes each home brewer dreads.
On weekends we roll out 'Hilly' - insensible - to which beer is best.
Even the local cop and publican closed the pub to take the test.
Water, yeast, malt - but no sugar - clarity and flavour of the hops.
The head, right down to the barley, but the disagreeing never stops,
and 'Hilly' never cleared one point; our beers were locked in similar status.
We need an independent to give a true scientific basis.
I suggested what we ought to do, is send samples to the public analyst,
for he will clear the finer points; the ones that obviously we missed.
Three weeks later in the mail, his analyzing caused a further strain -
'Gentlemen, I regret to tell you - that neither horse will race again!'
I’m very proud of my self-righteous stripes,
I’ve given more alms than you have my whole life
My self-flaggelations is more painful than anybody’s are
I’m sure that in heaven,
my name is neon blinking on the brightest star
My wool is so much whiter than yours,
my spiritual requests goes higher towards heaven
off the faith prayer springboard
I’m just so much more righteous
than you’ll ever be
I know I have a VIP spot
reserved in heaven for me
I love talking to myself endlessly everyday,
and I must say,
I give a mighty fine sermonizing soliloquy
My wool is so much more winter whiter than yours,
it lets my sins get cleansed faster
than anybody else’s of course
I’m tickled pink,
I’m blue in the face pleased
that I’m not like that pitiful soul
mournfully standing afar off from me
I’m no extortioner ...
I’m no adulterer ...
I’m no sinful publican ...
I’m an upright, self-righteous God fearing man
Me just love praying to myself several times a day,
it gives me goose bumps
hearing such a solemn, holier-than-thou soliloquy
No one can tell me
that my wool ain’t snow whiter than yours
Welcome to my self-righteous shrine,
may I give you another paid in crass tour?
A friendship gathering
in the land of Goshen ...
My friend, Flip J says transcendently,
that publican people are only telling you
half the truth every single usury time,
with a crocodile tear in their eye
The other half they’re selling you
all of the debt time
is a dirty Mississippi alligator lie
My other friend, Sky Queen nods,
her regal Nazarene head going up and down
Raises her voice, but not too loud
And shaking her long, raven-black dreads,
she crows:
I double the deck with everything Flip J said
Then she breaks off some more no-debate bread
with a solid gold ghetto truism:
Plastic politicians gon always
pimp the fake realism
Telling you, they’re on shorty poor’s side,
but they ain’t
Giving the rich the free gravy train ride;
breaking the bank,
by cutting the long taxes
And I oughta know,
‘cause I once had that kinda money before
Then my third friend, Cool Beat,
with his signature Cheshire cat grin,
made a smooth feline landing jumping in
Patting his perfectly shaped Afro,
which was not too short and not too long,
he spoke in his rumbling low tuba tone:
Them spineless three-piece jellyfish
gon always give the double niners the sting
Sky Queen speaks truth ‘bout those cotton mouth kings
She’s a proud, private lady ...
and won’t tell you
she gave most of her money perch away,
but still God got her sitting safe
That good woman’s actions speak rightly:
money come and go, but love always stay
Flip J, with his corporate-cut bald fade
and charismatic velvety voice,
was in a meditative repose
He looked at me with closed eyes
that was on a cosmic cruise galactic sail
And he mused: Rico Suave, man ...
Cool Beat knows us all too well!
I said not a word the whole time,
my silent agreement spoke for me
Then I voiced with soft, biblical humility:
a threefold cord is not broken easily
With a hushed, synchronized amen,
they all arose and said fond goodbyes
Thus came to an early evening end,
another gathering of my friends and I