Short Contrivance Poems

A flaming contrivance of heat,
The dumpster was quick on its feet.
It danced on its toes,
Though why, no one knows,
A partner it never did meet....

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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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There is a sadness soothing to the soul,
And with its smoothing, Herakles made whole.
And deep within him, pealed a bell,
And those who hear, must harken well:
For from the void, its rhythms swell,
And all contrivance shall it quell!
...

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I've heard that song before,
I've seen that dance too.

You think that we don't know,
what it is that you do.

You run your mouth about me,
as if you're in a race.

The stories you've fabricated,
karma will put you in your place.

For those who have believed you,
or were tricked by your contrivance.

Some day they will undo,
all that you've cut through.






...

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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