From behind velvet,
curtains drawn,
I peer with,
a glowing faculty,
of sentient,
embryonic paradox,
at entranced,
visual vine creeper,
that tiptoe cagey,
post dawn revealed,
picturesque glimpses,
stickler for the blind,
who treat with,
scorn dumbfound,
paradisal plinths,
metaphors for,
mountain tower apex,
or ground level placard,
to undulating urban,
tracts lavish,
where cerulean sky,
and town gossamer
mesh
Detroit Rolls Royce
Actually a “Cherry Picker”,
A Royce costume,
Disguising Yonah’s rise,
Repairing Balmore’s eruv slicker,
Faster than a Lamborgini volume,
But TA’s Gabbai is wise,
Checking wires needs a “Stickler”,
An observant Jew who doesn’t assume,
Taking pains to apprise,
R’ Ribiat is a George Washington “flicker”,
Both are Fathers, Yonah of the Ribiat Bloom,
Detroit Tiger & Lion prize,
Ty Cobb wore knickers,
R’ Ribiat a “Bekesher” plus reads volumes,
Hears Baila’s sighs & cries,
Eats Kosher, laughs never snickers,
Enjoy to 120! Adar zoom resume!
Chaim & Barbara
White sand, aqua blue Speedo
Umbrella drinks by the pool
Bikinis taunt my libido
What a fool, I'm covered in drool
Then, Beach Patrol spied my spit-slick
Flowing from rented umbrella
They handcuffed me to my joystick
But, I'm still one lucky fella
No comfort for the stickler, sticking literary fixtures depicting conflicting inklings to their minds as perfect pictures.
With one stroke of my pen the standards rose again and damned be lesser men.
As the pros of prose impose and profess, chaos needs redress.
For I, who's distress you must address, now cower and cleanse this mess, confess my prowess only serves to impress all reason to, "stop the press".
Anachronistic the measure of their metric, imperialistic so the eccentric can spiral in tantric concentric circlejerks.
Central to themselves, it works.
The stench of sh!t, a rose by any other name, smeared with effluent smirks.
With all due respect you may cling to the historic.
If you wish to press/play, I will lay waste.
I'm not here to copy/paste.
The past won't be replaced, though clearly trampled and retraced.
Finding you're fittingly faced with chagrin laden grimace feeding bitter distaste.
Thou is to doth o'er and o'er, as men of the cloth in unrestrained glory.
Touting the gospel loudly and poorly, wholly unaware it's a fairytale story.
She is a perfectibilan Paula said
I laughed so hard, I hurt my head
No one is more of a perfectionist than she
Probably why she can never find an appropriate he
I am not kidding, everything in her world is precise
Her kitchen and bathroom are immaculate, which is nice
But she’s as much a perfectibilan as anyone
A stickler for exactness from sundown to sun
Bess’s expressions were grotesque
Most usually weirdly cheerless
She is under unusual duress
Her family is an utter mess
Bess is playing poker more or less
Her deadpan expression not needless
A stickler for rules more or less
My watercress-loving friend named Bess
time is messy
gooey like molasses
sticky especially if you are a stickler for it
I choose to ignore it
pretending it is a fly caught on a glue strip
others race to please time
wanting it to rule them
I get a kick out of their frenzied belief in time
but do not buy into it
time is messy
With a quick competitive descent,
Darling Daffy and his feisty duels;
No sportsmanship? He turns violent;
He’s a stickler for all of the rules;
Makes no difference if it’s a giraffe
or Bugs Bunny banging on that piano,
play the game fair or get cut in half;
This the challengers ALWAYS know;
‘A lower standard will always debase!’
screams a bar sign in ACME letters;
Looking for a fair fight? This is the place.
Who’s fire with melodic measures?
Sly cockatoo sashays in with a grin,
itching to throw in a song that’s fire;
He holds the decadence of a violin,
and claims to be an A list player;
Daffy smugly looks him up and down
‘You win? With that? What fallacies!!’
‘I’m Fuego I play two. Give me my crown.
Known as the best to play Merry Melodies.’
To be continued …
Mottled black and white rooster stood proud on his sled
Can he do handstands and back flips? Asked his cousin Ned.
He could but he won’t, his sister, a rule stickler said.
The rooster listened to all of these expectations with dread.
Mottled black and white rooster stood proud on his sled
Can he do handstands and back flips? Asked his cousin Ned.
He could but he won’t, his sister, a rule stickler said.
The rooster listened to all of these expectations with dread.
A man still in the darkness
Who has never seen the light
Is better than a man toying with darkness
From the vantage point of light
One knows and lives with the pain
The other sees his own injuries and bleedings
One only reaches for whatever to hold and retain
Another well sees the paths and their leadings
One a stickler for the ways of the ancestors
Better he who remains until he finds new conviction
Than he who tramples on God as one of the gestures
Of one feeling free of need for his accumulation
If the worldly want to keep their worldliness
With cunningness, insistence and assertion
Ye called by God's Name keep your godliness
With faith, the Word, assurance and meditation
Whoever know what to do and doesn't sins
Whoever lacks by rejecting knowledge perishes
Yes, endowment can come to one who gleans
And a gleam can lead to the light that virtue relishes
K. Muitherero
It’s often used in lyrics
Since the music cuts some slack
But each time I get to hear it,
I am taken some aback.
For to me, who is a purist,
It’s a point in fact that I’m
Quite a stickler who objects to
Any near- or almost-rhyme.
Sometimes laziness explains it,
Or the closeness of a word
To a rhyming one makes writers
Think a real rhyme will be heard.
Often there is nothing fitting
With the word the poet chose.
Finding others to replace it
Is a job each stickler knows.
There are many who will argue
Even Shakespeare sometimes fudged
Though that knowledge doesn’t faze me;
My beliefs will not be budged.
I bring her red and white carnations
"Roses," she says, "only roses. Valentine's tradition."
Breezy pressure of non-acceptance
Words that flatten me like a dull sermon
Squirm inducing to understand what I'm up against
Commands that taste like salt
Re-booting the rhythm of ritual
Re-framing an approach to love
For however long the florist remains open
Poem composed: February 16, 2021
Revised: April 18, 2021
They're not your friend
this message I'll send
you're sure to feel the prick
uh oh a clique
their standards are too high
and even if you comply
you won't meet up to them
even though you're a gem
they won't recognize you as one
that's not a lot of fun
for the outsider
you're eyes will be wider
you'll receive attention at first
if your talent doesn't burst
you must be ideal
to what they feel
that you should be
they're never free
a stickler to their belief
together they will brief
it's as if you're back in school
resembling a fool
what a bunch of snobs
they gather in mobs
don't let your heart to ache
for they're nothing but a fake
A pattern? Mom did not need one. She made her own
Like her own jelly, jam, and one time ketchup
When kids came to play, they stuck with her
She was more fun than I was, but a stickler for truth.
She had a sense of humor that would laugh the trees silly
Wasted it on church, perpetually attending everything there
But maybe not a waste. Maybe it was what she needed
Being a mother of twins and a quiet boy
Her quilts were done with tiny stitches
She also quilted, crocheted, tatted,
Loved being a wife and mother
Loved cooking, baking and cleaning
I never figured out how anyone could love cleaning.
She was perpetually vibrant and young.
Youthful in her thinking. A one-of-a-kind woman.
She would do what was right always, stand up to
everyone. She wore integrity like a necklace, not a crown.
We thought she would live to be one hundred and five
like our mean Great Aunt Eudora.
Sadly she did not.
I pick up the phone to call her almost twice a week.
Forgetting she has been gone since January.
It is weird to release a person like this
Obviously, I never can.
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