Swanky Poems

Orchids If You Please

True highbrows can't hear commoner's pleas
Stuck sitting on their swanky settees
Status fades as affluence recedes
I'd prefer pink orchids if you please

Elitists applaud wealthy reprise
Fake posers deceive masses with ease
Think that they deserve all that they seize
So send purple orchids if you please

Fools imagine themselves on marquees
Those who would toss it all to the breeze
Who can't see the forest for the trees
Bring me more red red orchids if you please

Cultures erode when no one agrees
Innocence shrinks slowly by degrees
Fairness appears a tawdry tease
I sigh for white orchids if you please

Feel for the needy brought to their knees
My selfish world of ten thousand mes
Flowers fail as empty pleasantries
Making these moments mere niceties

Banana once again

What sold was for millions as art so grand,
Was bought for a few cents at a fruit stand--
A fancy mall nor mart,
Nor place of art apart,
Nor was banana taped with swanky band.
But a joke so cruel
In art’s name was this all, 
Or call it a crime of a dollar land. 
______________________
Happenings |02.12.2024| art, irony, humour

Poet’s note: The banana that was sold for millions as an art piece was purchased at a fruit stand outside Sotheby’s auction house for 35 cents apiece, or 4 for one dollar (purchased for $ 5.2 million by a crypto currency entrepreneur-- who else?). How absurd can things go in this so-called world of art gone crazy for money? The banana seller, one called Shah Alam from Bangladesh, literally cried after knowing this. Yes, a joke it was this all, a cruel one for the poor banana vendor. Artist Cattelan pontificates, ‘Art, by its nature, does not solve problems-- if it did, it would be politics’. Indeed, the banana vendor was stunned and left still poor. See ‘Art going bananas’.

Georgia in mid-March

the roaring sound rejuvenates      my heart

wind whips,
                    bells tinkle,
                                       flag flaps
                                                       thought i
needed to change
                                into shorts
but my

               just bare feet,
    thin sweater      blue jeans
                                                         perfect
for this early Spring                            blustering

lilliputian tweets and vroom beats

      such temperate tempest jubilation

lifts                                                          my spirits
if

the sea  were involved
with
its  swanky salt                       I’m seconds away
from
                           the pearly gates

Uh Oh

Subtle, a swanky sweet swan-themed restaurant in Cincinnati
Accidentally took evening reservations for a hundred and three
Unfortunately, their capacity limit is twenty-five and a half
The booking agent got fired, which reduced the staff

The England Captain Throttled a Koala

And why not?
The Lucky country
Bodyline
Human skittles
Murder Incorporated 
Swing lube 

I sit with friends and 
We put
Together our greatest XI
To face Mars
My father shouts, "That's out!"
And the umpire gives it

My son reads The Beano and is 
Not interested 
In the sixes

The announcer shouts, "Make some noise Edgbaston!"
He is shoved over and the Harlequin Waitrose capped swanky pants 
In a spiffing gaggle announces, "Bowling from the City End, some bloke."

A friend told me he strangled 
A goat
"That makes you feel really alive."

King

Christ, the King of kings
Of whom my soul sings
Born in a manger
His life in danger
No palace, no bed
No place to lay head 
Walking everywhere
No carriage to spare
Riding a donkey
No horse ride swanky
A crown of sharp thorns
The King's head adorns
A reed placed in hand
Not a sceptre grand
Scarlet robe mocking
Such treatment shocking
He endured all pain
And then rose again
One day, He'll return
World to overturn
The King glorious
Christ victorious

New Life

She cut the ties
The good
The bad
The menopause
Finally, the long pause
Followed by the loneliness
Days became weeks, became months
It was time
Life begins at forty
Did it, end at forty-six
Swanky bar
Lights, music, fear
She felt that drowning sensation
Maybe to early
She felt eyes upon her
Smiling, teasing, no words
Her guard was up
It’s impolite to stare
Sorry, I was undressing you
Never in her life
Reality hit home, indignant
And tell me, how far did you get
All the way down to your inhibitions
Twenty-three years worth, she thought
The ice was broken
Tom was the first
John wouldn't be the last.

Night Club

Club nocturnal

In Bilbao, on a warm evening, he walked past a nightclub 
walked in and had a beer; he could have gone to 
a Guggenheim Museum and be culturally minded, absorb
and mention it later in a passing conversation, “the other
day at the Guggenheim.”
At the club, a group of people sat drinking affluent bubbly
wine, thinking it was champagne, the group laughed a lot
and apparently had a fine time, although, he thought they
were a bit frenzied about the fun
The people around the table didn’t look prosperous and
the women looked like office tarts, with too much lipstick and 
mascara, flashing eyes and giggles.
He knew (had been there) that the one footing the bill
would feel dreadful in the morning, sensing the futility
an ice cap on sagging shoulders of hopelessness.
No, it was not the drinking, real drinkers do not frequent 
nightclubs, but drinking at modest places, was about feeling swanky
 a man about town.
He paid for his beer and complained about the price 
the waiter pointed to a pricelist hanging high on a wall, so there!
Along the boulevard, he bought newspapers went to a café, 
had some wine and spent hours enjoying himself.

Peppy Petals

blooms
bouncy
baby’s breath
busy bee balm
ritzy rose, glitzy gloxinia
zany zinnia, dear ditzy daisy
swanky saffron
flouncy phlox
bonnie
buds

Critterature: Concerning the Crafty Crayfish

By many aliases they're known:
Crawfish, crawdads, mudbugs, yabbies.
They abound in brooks, and streams, and swamps,
As well as roadside ditches and rice paddies.

Their astacology has shown
They prey like scavengers and mobsters,
While some, more taxonomically aloof,
Try hard to pass as mountain lobsters.

Throughout the world as food they're meant,
Both from the wild and from the grocer,
But not as a substitute for meat at Lent
Because they're not considered kosher.

And so the cunning, craven crayfish,
The ones that didn't get away,
End up in boils, or bisques, or soups,
If not served up as étouffés
In swanky overpriced cafés.

One Hundred Colours of Gluck

Emerald envy nestled on velvet 
several thousand away from paid
Puce tulip promise inducement
secluded juice, palliation delayed 

Ivory aspire ripped wide envelope
plump with numbered requirement
Absinthe ardent delerium implode
paper stack compiling assignment

Cerulean satin adorns a champion
swanky speculators chase plethora
Fuchcia blooming futures chiming
swindle hopeful fast hoof investors

Magenta dash magic, risky fingers
probe probable, middle of pack peril
Bronze woebegone pilfers millions
prestigious month end ear emeralds




19th January 

Naples Yellow, Ginger, Gold 

Emerald Earrings

Of Infinity

On the exquisite wings of fated infinity.  
We move with subtle elegance and fluidity.
To sail into odd space on a vessel of silence.
It is clearly the domain of the swanky credence.

I desired you to be hither on a grisly day.
Hardship had exhausted my psychic spray.
I hailed you while gazing at your charm.
On the verge of a crux in winsome smarm.

Here you'll find the hustle and bustle. 
We will rest and unwind as the term shuffle. 
After you've aged through the up and down.
Our stature in a senders mod panel is known.

I'd been deprived of any expectation, developed.
The pre-winter light was precisely what I scorned.
What's beyond, yelled out, "Let the haziness in!"
The portly flare ought to be turned until the spleen.
 
We are enjoying areas that are beyond our side.
When we beget to maturity, all effort has died.
You can willingly view we've arrived at the wallow.
Waivers serve as the lessons we should follow.


Written: November 09, 2021

This or That, Vol 8 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Edward Ibeh

Tree After Life

Mother nature’s trees shudder in the breeze,
Clothed in ashened sky,bearing angry eye.
The winds conversation with birds to flock,
Branches of two trees interlock.

Angry eye is sporting black,
The fight for supremacy notoriously back.

Rabbits and squirrels retreat with their fear,
As an audience of trees lean as they peer.

Returning bird to referee,
The elderly tree resumes paying his fee.
His younger capture boasting minus concern,
As he thrashes with heavy twist and turn.

Wind is bullying close behind,
The elderly tree disadvantaged,he finds.
He creaks and groans,bleeding his sap,
Gentleman of the forest lye dead in rivers lap.

Succeeding opponent standing proud,
As a silent applause was never so loud.

Wisdom now is all that remains,
As the woodcutter starts to sharpen his blades.
Tightened by rope in the woodcutters truck,
It’s not the end,he’s back in luck!

Now he’s sitting front of house,
In a swanky restaurant in London Town.

All admire as they prop,
If only they knew the story from the top.

As they sip their drinks with chatter,
A distant sound of trees will clatter.

Struggle Continues

A homeless woman squatted on the pavement 
Empty bottle of mineral water by her side. 
It was a hot summer noon …the stench 
Of poverty makes me ashamed as I ride, 

The swanky metro. Brooding… get off at my station, 
Impatiently, walk as the street urchins extend hands to beg, 
For money, for food; wonder should I buy rations 
With dismay, saw one was hopping, had only one leg. 

Anger welled up against the mafia that maims these kids, 
And trains them in art of begging, recognise the victims. 
The so called slum dogs, with resignation and grit 
Grow into petty thieves or whores, at the mercy of pimps. 

The dance of Democracy reaches a crescendo. 
Candidates come with promises and folded hands. 
Smouldering eyes, one asked with bravado, 
How come in the name of growth we see a helipad? 

Young nation, been six decades, since independent, 
Learnt, after Kosi floods, kids sold for pennies by parents. 
Common man’s plight worse than that of pigs and insects. 
Live on hope and prayers, a great leader will finally resurrect.

          #FECUND_WRITER

Atoms and Ash

Everything ends
Even Shakespeare’s works
will cease to exist 
someday
when the sun swells 
burning it all away
to atoms and ash
every sonnet
every play
every single syllable 
he ever penned
set adrift in the void of space
So it doesn’t matter 
he will never know me
I will never know him
We will never engage 
in deep discussions 
of doomed masterpieces
over tea or coffee
in a quiet corner of a cafe
or while imbibing bourbon 
smooth and sweet
in a swanky bar on Broadway
served in crystal glasses
reflecting rainbows of light 
into our eyes as we realize
Nietzsche was right

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