Effete Poems

Shamrock on the Shorts

a fairy tale of Camden Town

Clancy’s Gym, the same old sounds
a minute’s rest then two more rounds
I’ll jack this in (like Bobby Prewitt)
but where’s the one who made me do it?
He hasn’t come, he’s never here
by now he’s on his second beer
presiding in the Dublin Castle
surrounded by his navvy vassals
they’re calling me “the Tralee Tiger”
I coulda been … where’s my Rod Steiger?
the jolting jab, fast on his feet,
the bantamweight that no-one’s beat…
my bucket? Something-Saint-John’s-Wood
and scum from gumshields, spit and blood
I’ve learnt a word I like – “effete”
You don’t hear that on Albert Street
He knows I never wanted this. He
said he’d cure me called me cissy
he calls me Rocky. What a sham
why can’t I be the thing I am?
I want to dance like Nureyev
which might explain the fury of
the shellacking that this lad’s getting
Look at those losers busy betting
Sad old slobs with Patterson poses
ten-buck suits and flattened noses
come to think, though, who’s the fool
they’re not up here on this stool
back room Clancy’s Masculine Sports
blood on the gloves, shamrock on the shorts

the sergeant's son

the sergeant's son 

His father, a sergeant who loved his army
and took it home at night, thought his son's
fear of the dark was effete
gave him a flashlight to use when going to
the loo in the yard where darkness ruled supreme; the puny light emitted from his 
light didn't help much
The boy sensed the horrible rats, haters of
humans read to unleash the plague for 
the hell of it and also bite his Willey 
It struck him then and now that our light
is a momentarily sudden flash, more 
sensed than seen 
In a world ruled by dark forces and death
of all that was a beautiful, sink-to-ground
to ground and become dust trampled on by
his father's army 
In the dark, he saw his father's black shiny car
he peed on one of its wheels and felt relief 
a revenge against the man who like to be 
called sergeant when off duty.

Black Mold

Intellectual larceny
the academic elite
Immune from indictment
inured and effete
They swing their false knowledge
like weapons to maim
The truth left in ashes
— their lies to inflame

(Septa R5: February, 2024)

Naked Robbery

Classes on tranny and ***** diversity
    universities reek of perversity

  Discrimination abounds all around
    save if your skin's black or brown

  Tuition hikes obscene, naked robbery
    flaunt luxury dorms and diners, effete snobbery

  Not a smidgen on learning or teaching in glittering reports
    just facilities upgrades, data analytics in sports

  Grade inflation boosts illiteracy ever higher
    agree or disagree ~ at least I'm no liar

Tweets

I, too, dislike poems.
I’ve tried runes (and rampikes)
but that’s affected
rather than merely effete.
So I call them
figments.
When people query
What do you write?
at a barbecue or birthday party
I say soliloquies,

fractals,
fragments.
Self-similarities,
singularities,
sculptures (scriptures), geometric shapes and series,
three dimensional triangles, spheres
and differential equations,
fractured fairy tales,
Rocky and Bullwinkle,
rectal impactions.

On the other hand,
bits, bots, bytes
remnants, scrap, earth
gobs of phlegm in grains of sand,
shards of glass in a slice of hell,
hunks and clumps, curds and whey, sleet and pain, slap in the face
sub-atomic particles, cell organelles,
chunks of energy, cookie crumbs,
rusty trucks stuck in mud, dustings for ghosts,
just plain dumb luck, rocks, concrete, but not tweets.

Education's Desecration

perhaps we are effete snobs
though we fete our snobbery honestly
   
   we lie and cheat our way to A's and B's
   leave for fools those 'gentleman's C's'

On the Other Side

SEQUEL: Sebastian Jnr Ft Poet Em Em

On the other side, lies
Blind heart: swimming in his sweat
Heading to verge of nowhere in eve
To dredge his sepulchre
For who knows? He said
Of what rain the fountain would pour

On the other side, stuck
Half-closed effete eyes,
Fueling by fountain of "at least",
to sleep not.
But to rubberneck life in reverse

So tell the snake 
To not walk his path.
This is a rock with pebbles
For legs with no nails walks not

Sip not with him
From the gloomy tears 
He seeks in night..
Oh!..Sit on the other side of terrace,
Is a prisoner of war: whose eyes might not catch 'morrow

(2)

Where chicks are entitlement 
to wild eagles - daily meal, 
and the latter are carcasses 
to sky hunters for fat belly

Where eye-catching dreams 
could only come true 
at times the nose grunts 
and during every moment 
all bodies strike poses
for clear and clean shot

Yes, this very side
we value sewerages over beverages
open skies over thatched roofs
and whenever the moon visits
our lips widen their coast

Gallery Art

I have to crane my neck
the small coterie presses,
I am too short
for long distance seeing
walls tower over my eyes
like curtains.

“You have to see the hidden in the hidden”

The svelte tailored nose-whisper
expects me to know what he means.
I do, but I am not going to nod
and affirm his effete conceits

besides, I am only here
because of the rain.

I am still trying to step back
to take the image in
from a far view

but there are backs
and back-packs,
slow dripping rain hats.

Spectacles are steaming up
in the muggy ambience,

and he is droning
going to a place
where flowers in a vase
mark a post-revolutionary
something or other.

Now I can’t see it at all
perhaps it is hiding in its
hideaway
almost in front of my face?

I overhear
over damp overcoats
it being coaxed
into something more,

much more
than a few blobs of color
caught indoors
on a rainy day.

Effete

My dear Miss Peach how lovely!
Your table boasts so fair
You've chosen the finest bubbly
Best porcelain plates and crystal ware

Your handpicked guests are perfect
They know just what to say
They are prefects without defects
With no real opinions per se

Your parties are full of boasting
With braggarts, blowhards and egos
Pomposity excels in what they are toasting
Meaningless, pointless placebos

So Miss Peach I beg you not be stilted
Or try in your best elegance to change
What manner you provide is boring and gilded
And matters not to bourgeois talk wearisomely deranged

October 20, 2020

Completely Your Choice (30) Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Brian Strand

Unnecessaries

UNNECESSARIES

Some days when we need aliments
Or stuff to clean our residence
My wife sends me to venture out
With mission like a good Boy Scout

Well briefed with edicts firm conveyed
By She: one who must be obeyed
I go forth full of good intent
No thought to breach nor circumvent

With list in hand I scout for best
Of items to fulfil my quest
When eye in wayward fashion’s drawn
To piles of “When it’s gone it’s gone”

And little siren packs and parcels
Speak to me of tempting morsels
Biscuits, chocolates crisps and nuts
Lay there, seduce like wanton sluts

Returning home my bag replete
With stocks both needed and effete
Mid staple list I seek to bury
Little things unnecessary

I state my case as I intone:
“Man does not live by bread alone!”
The things that bring delight and joy
Lift spirits of this bad old boy

With love let’s happiness pursue 
And relish what we have, not rue
Two hearts then gratified and merry
That my Dear is  NECESSARY!

The Machiavellian

With honeyed comments, you absorb adulation in vain;
drinking it in like a congratulatory champagne. 

Down your nose, you smoothly cajole; 
Deft at choreographing leverage to reach a goal.

The effete man you put forth is cast in boorish airs -
Stealthily exuding to foil all players.

Irreproachable character, you claim in spades,
but to athwart interference you throw up blockades
 
Speaking in bitter tones, speeches full of lies suppressed -
churlishly angered with those that protest.

Nice Images

Your poems have
nice images.

I can't use them.

They don't drive trucks,
weld, or pour cement.

I can't wear them
like boots in the snow.

They won't keep my head
dry in the rain.

I like your images
but
don't try to pull a
fast one.

A slight of pen
quicker than the eye.

A twist of tongue
dredged from dead scrolls.

Your images are good
but I'm tired.

If they were on TV
I'd turn the channel.

I don't think of your
poems during the World Series.

You will become famous,
appointed to a marble history,
far removed from the slamming
screen doors,
the runny noses of crying
babies.

Elitist pedagogues
will force feed the young
on you.

America will hate you
to your effete marrow,
and Exxon won't sponsor
you.

Published Black Buzzard Press - 1982

Avidity

In the swaying middle of a dangerous voyage
To climes of far sunnier look and ripening age, 
I often fight the doubts of a death-daring wreck;
Questioning the exact wisdom of my lonely trek. 

Not that I midway could my courses amend,
Nor make room for ruings and ebbing hopes;
Or dreading harsher shores first wishes trim,
To cry in sync with sad martyrs' effete tropes. 

Verily there’s a shadow where clear roads stood,
And tripping blocks where defter legs easily trod; 
There slashing ogres their charging scrolls shout,
To put to rout the wearied walker's untiring mode.

Yes dispiriting detriment picked routes obscures,
With every unthinkable wall and slowing mounds;
Forcing fatigued legs into impromptuous detours,
Which bite with blighting pain and chilling sounds. 

The labouring voyager shall move on in truth,
To the dream-born Idylls of his unshorn youth.

Ah, To Age, To Ripen, To Mature

Ah, to age, to ripen, to mature
to grow sated in one’s being
embracing both weed and bud
the royal effete and the undignified.

To observe the nature of the wind
absorb the lessons of the sun
bask in the aura of moonlit mystery
sample the sustenance of spring rains.

To know and yet be teachable
feel yet not grow numb
touch yet leave no mark
see and still believe.

To age, as gnarled perennials,
wrinkled rings to date the times
deep roots, bowed backs
hearts carved in splitting bark.



©6/4/2019

A contest on aging Poetry Contest
Emile Pinet sponsor

The Fairy Tale

effete
    yet
      resplendent
effervescent
        svelte
         like
never -the- less
              perverse
serene
in
her 
    secret  
       depths
fermenting
the
fantastic-
          her
           essence
enters
the
   ether
     ethereal
yet
exists
     in
       imagination

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