Short Contrivance Poems

The health bill crawls to a finish
thanks to that turncoat, Kucinich,
selling that socialist streak
that renders everyone weak
like Popeye without his spinach....

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My soul ancient,
  but my spirit new

The past a contrivance,
  the future untrue

My thoughts reborn,
  all feelings renamed

To christen this moment,
 —its present reclaimed

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2017)...

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My brother reprobator and oedipus.
Nimble selictor, nisus impersonale muss.
Improvidence, goggle eyed or irrational,
Instigate inane dowdy, kinsfolk isolate fuss.
Paramour or inamorato objurgate carlish,
Impune contrivance, obfuscate gobble tush.
A partner inauspicious or inartificial indigent,
Not same as before lumber or lurcher hiss.
Irremissible offence fidget formidable lead,
My parents exaggerate emotions I ever miss....

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It sprang upon me,
a clawed metaphor
not anything real, 
but a shaggy crypto-beast.

Then the seductive purr 
the mannered modes, the manicured forms
those deftly obvious diphthongs 
that like spoor, lead to more -
the unmistakable reek of
a force-fed poem

The first step they say is recognition,
the second step, is to admit
a laryngeal contrivance.
The third step is to clean up
without complaint,
when it craps all over the page....

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It sprang upon me,
a clawed metaphor
not anything real,
but a shaggy crypto-beast.
Hand picked alliterations
scatter like litter.

Then the seductive purr
the mannered modes, the manicured forms
those deftly obvious diphthongs
that like spoor, lead to more -
the unmistakable reek of
a force-fed poem

The first step they say is recognition,
the second step is to admit
a laryngeal contrivance.
The third step is to clean up
without complaint,
when it poops all over the page....

Read More