Tag Archives: dversepoets

A Misanthropic Anti-Creed

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Version 2

The assignment was to write a 6-line alphabet poem that started each line with a letter of the alphabet in a 6-letter sequence.  I.E. abcdef, qrstuv, etc.  Being a creature of excess, I used the entire alphabet, forwards and backwards, ending with a final Z to boot, since the title began with an “A.”  Please note that this is the cynical rant of a misanthrope—not necessarily my own view.  And this is the only photo I could find in my album that smacked of high society.  Actually, it’s a photo of me and my date for the junior prom.

A Misanthropic Anti-creed

After all is said and done,
Society is not much fun.
Cliques are just a machination
Dumbing down imagination. 
Each misanthrope must find his own
Final method to disown
Galas thrown to feed the poor
Hawking excesses they abhor.
Ladies in jewels you could die of,
Jostling to catch the eye of
Kings of minor countries or
Lords who are the things of lore.
Meanwhile, gents in tux and tie
Nod to try to catch the eye
Of that next lady in Dior
Possessed of means to feed the poor.
Quickened now, they move to kill,
Ready to restore their till.
Society’s main charity
Trying for a parity
Under the understanding that
Verisimilitude is boring.
What’s important is just scoring
Xcess being all the norm
Yielding to those who most conform.
Zero, then, goes to the poor.
You must admit, they are a bore.
Xtravagence is what they come for.
Widows they won’t waste a crumb for.
Very likely that the starving
Urgently needing  this feast’s carving
Taste not one small bite of it,
Still hungry now in spite of it.
Rich charity spends what’s allowed on
Quality that draws the crowd on.
Pheasant under glass costs more.
Only beans left for the poor. 
Not a charitable hope
Mars ponderings of our misanthrope.
Let not one charitable thought
Knit his brow.With doubts it’s fraught.
Jarring thoughts are all he thinks
In between ironic winks.
Hear well the stories he might tell—
Gory threats of burning hell
For that well-heeled society
Eating up the profits of
Doubtful fund raisers of love.
“Charitize” to feed the poor,
But really serve their own needs more.
Ask the misanthrope at the door.
Zero is left to feed the poor!!!!

The dVerse Poets prompt is to write a 6 line alphabet phone, using 6 letters in sequence to begin lines.  Here is the link: https://www.blenza.com/linkies/links.php?owner=dversepoets&postid=12Sep2018&meme=12493

Near: dVerse Poets Pub, Apr 28, 2018

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Near

My father went from obscurity to a sort of small renown.
He worked hard as a rancher and the mayor of our town.
He met my mother at a dance in her sister’s borrowed gown–
both of them lonely visitors to a faraway strange town.
I’ve thought about it often since we laid him down.
Why didn’t I ask more questions? Why didn’t I write it down?

Many a calf he helped to birth and many a field he’s mown.
Avoided his mother if he could–long-suffering aged crone.
Not many highways traveled,nor many airwaves flown.
He died in his angry daughter’s arms–the two of them alone.
I’ve thought of it often till regrets have turned into a drone.

His eyes were always looking further over yon.
Over a ripening field of wheat or over a fresh-mowed lawn.
Working, often, until dark and up again at dawn.
A man of camaraderie and wit and brains and brawn.

He liked to tell a story and sing a rousing tune.
Stand on the porch at midnight to piss under the moon.
He gave me a turquoise ring, a baby rabbit and a coon.

Now that he’s very gone away.  Now that I’m very grown,
I know my flesh is of his flesh. My bone is of his bone.

And I wish that I’d asked more questions. That we’d both been less alone.

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The form of this poem is one consisting of six stanzas, the first with 6 lines and each thereafter one less line.  Each line in each stanza rhymes with all the other lines in that stanza and each stanza’s rhyme is a near rhyme to the last. The name of this form is Sylvestrian Near Rhyme and since “Near” describes both the theme and form of my poem, it is also the name of the poem.  And yes, I did make up the form!  I’d love it if poets given to rhyming and meter would attempt the form and send me the results as comments or a link to this blog.

For dVerse Poets Pub

Tanaga for dVerse Poets: New Wisdom from Old

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New Wisdom from Old

Words copied from the I Ching
turn new eyes to everything.
Propped up on her vanity,
they preserve her sanity.

for dVerse Poets Tanaga Challenge.

Open Letter to the Airline Mucky-Mucks: (For dVerse Poets)

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Open Letter to the Airline Mucky-Mucks

To Whom It May Concern:

My carry-on’s too heavy to lift above my seat,
so I had to put it under, now there’s no room for my feet.
I request some water (though I’ve been twice rebuffed,)
to take an antihistamine, for my eyes are puffed
from the perfume of my seatmate, which also made me cough.
So I’m already hurting long before lift off.
I’ve squeeze marks from the narrow seats, I’m shivering from the draft,
and when this ride is over, I must board another craft!

Two hours later, two states up, I face another battle
trying to find a decent airport meal here in Seattle.
On my muffuletta sandwich (priced $15.93),
I look in vain for olives, which there don’t seem to be.
My Tim’s potato chips are stale, the sodas are all flat.
The Wifi that they advertise does not know where I’m at.
Air travel’s an adventure but not the one I sought.
I forget this lesson once again, refusing to be taught.

One hour left ‘til I lift off to wing my way on east,
I buy a drink and steel myself to board your winged beast.
I hope this time my seatmate fits in her own seat
so I don’t have to deal again with the impossible feat
of leaning out into the aisle, avoiding every ass
of passengers and stewards that brush me as they pass.
I bitch, I whine, I grouse, I cry, complain and moan and sigh.
‘Til by now I’m sure you wonder why I even fly.

I must admit I’ve asked myself the same as I’ve been talking.
The only reason I have found is that it sure beats walking.

 

For dVerse Poets prompt: Write a poem in the form of a letter.

Burn

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The sun has burned the day away
and set the sea  on fire
turning a glowing pathway
into a funeral pyre.
She, too, has left her day behind,
shed like a soiled dress.
What tomorrow holds for her
She has no need to guess.

A quadrille on the prompt “burn” for dVerse Poets.

Science and Politics at the Redneck Bar

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Science and Politics at the Redneck Bar

It’s easier to talk than think,
especially when you’ve had a drink
or two or three or six or seven.
That’s when you’re sure you’re going to heaven.

And anyone more liberal
is surely going to go to hell
along with those who worship God
with rituals that you find odd.

And even worse is all of those
in turbans, robes or hippie clothes
who don’t believe in God at all.
They’re destined for the biggest fall.

Transsexuals and the profusion
of folks with sexual confusion
need to get their heads on right
or be removed from good folk’s sight.

Those who pontificate in bars
sport redneck slogans on their cars
and are so sure that them and thars
will live with God up in the stars.

Creationism is a fact
and scientists have made a pact
with one below who waits for them
to come and make their home with him.

And they don’t even need to think
beyond what they next want to drink.
They’re so securely in the know
because the Bible told them so.

They do not need to feed their brothers
or provide health care for the others.
Planned Parenthood’s the devil’s scheme
and Right To Life’s the savior’s team.

Woman should bear what she has sown
and raise the product all alone.
It is her punishment for sex—
this guilt for children she neglects.

Society should never pay
for lowlife children such as they.
Society should close its doors
to the progeny of faithless whores.

Retribution is the thing
Obamacare neglects to bring.
Cutting welfare’s the best way
to insure they pay and pay.

If you were smart like them, you’d know
this scheme is how the world should go.
First remove birth control and then
make sure she has her spawn of sin.

Do not provide for them at all.
Then you’ll begin to see Eve’s fall.
What she brought Adam to she’ll see
and be punished endlessly.

For dVerse Poets: a poem about drinking.

To Get a Poem (5 Quadrilles)

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To Get a Poem

(5 Quadrilles)

Leave the dirty dishes in the sink.
A dishwasher washes the poems away.
Allow cat hair to accumulate on the footstool.
Cat hair is a city for poems.
Let plants go another day before watering,
lest poems in the soil should be flushed away.

Let lie the crumpled sock a friend’s child
left in the sleeping loft.
Don’t destroy the poem of it.
Don’t bother to rake leaves.
Poems cannot live in neat piles.
Leave the soupstain on your shirt .
Tomato and basil are ingredients of poetry.

There is a poem in the confetti of paper on the bedroom carpet
and in the bread crumbs and the orphaned straight pins.
Bills in the “TO BE PAID” folder?
Each is the embryo of a poem.
Paying them now would be poetry murder.

In my living room, there is more poetry
in the blankets of dust on glass tables
than the burnished surface of the clay vase.
There is more poetry, more poetry, more poetry
than can ever be tidied up in this world or the next.

Falling poetry snarls in the weave of the hammock.
All of this raw poetry lies around us, primed for the collecting.
Messy poetry and dusty.
You won’t die from, but you could live on
poetry that’s hidden in the messy corners of your world.

 

For dVerse Poets. The prompt was to write a quadrille on the subject of poetry.