XXXXXXX

SCRIPT FLIPPING 101 (TANKA)


They say you can't shit
a shitter but it's really
not that difficult.
Not only did I do it,
I wrote a book about it.

XXXXXXX

WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM? (HAIKU)


Men are from Mars and

women from Venus - unless

they are from Strapon.

XXXXXXX

AMERICA


Corn fields
Drug deals
Saying grace
Spraying Mace
Confetti Graffiti
America

Hot tubs
Billy clubs
Styling mousse
Child abuse
Condos
Winos
America

Apple pie
Right-to-die
"Star Search"
Strip Search
Personals
Arsenals
America

Empty Nests
Urine Tests
Re-runs
Hand Guns
Tofu
Voodoo
America

VCR’S
Topless Bars
Past Lives
Battered wives
Big Macs
Heart Attacks
America

Mickey Mouse
Crack house
College Boards
Slum lords
Blue corn
Kiddie porn
America

Teflon
Radon
Freeways
Three - ways
Rogaine
Cocaine
America

Cell phones
Nursing homes
Jello molds
Centerfolds
"X-Files"
Pedophiles
America

Vanna White
Urban Blight
Game Shows
Death Rows
Tampax
Anthrax
America

Shopping carts
Body parts
Rock'n' Roll
Gun control
Slurpees
Herpes
America

Park'n'Ride
Suicide
Emails
She-males
Early detection
Lethal Injection
America

SATs
PCBs
Touchdowns
Meltdowns
End Zone
Ozone
America

Juice bars
Porn Stars
Food Courts
Anal warts
Tex - Mex
Safe Sex
America

Spiced Ham
Son of Sam
Surrogate Moms
Hydrogen bombs
7-Eleven
Armagedden
America

Superhero
Ground Zero
Austin Powers
Twin Towers
Potato chips
Apocalypse
America


© 2005 Dormouse Press

XXXXXXX

PYGMY LION (TANKA)


You used to be king

of the jungle but that was

forty years ago.

Why don’t you find yourself a

nice lioness and just chill?

XXXXXXX

PRETZEL LOGIC (HAIKU)


It is difficult
to put your best foot forward
when it’s in your mouth.

But taking it out
is impossible when your
head’s stuck up your ass.

XXXXXXX

PSYCHOPATHIA SEXUALIS (HAIKU)


The man who cuts off

his dick to spite his face is

at war with himself.

XXXXXXX

SHOW AND TELL*


If you don’t like
my little Hallmark ditties
I’ve got a birthmark

on one of my titties

It’s small and brown
and it can’t rhyme

And you can see it

anytime



* Oh, darn. You’ve already seen those pictures.

XXXXXXX

MAMMOGRAM (dedicated to experimental poet Arielle Greenberg)


(Ninety nine bottles of
beer
maybe it was beer

on the wall

Certainly it was a wall


(Ninety nine bottles
of beer or was it wine?
on the wall fence
shelf whatever
If one or more than
one
of those

bottles should happen to fall

but if a tree
falls in the forest and
no one is there to hear it, then what?

( It barely breathes. Certainly we
hear it or maybe not

(Ninety nine when it was dark ninety eight
when I went to my lover ninety seven
when my lover came
Ninety fucking six ……………. Maybe this is boring

(Certainly this is boring

(Maybe I can barely breathe

Anyway ….

(Ninety five …. ninety four ….
When do we stop counting?

(ninety three …. ninety two …..

Whatever ………………..

XXXXXXX

SPELING BEE (TANKA)



Posted on the net:

Dose threesomes hurt marraiges?

I don't claim to know

but I suspect whoever

wrote this has bigger problems.

XXXXXXX

RATS LIVE ON NO EVIL STAR*



Scurrying surrogates of

infamy turd the

purpled night sky.


Unrepentant lichen

pirouettes in

sea foam marginalia.


Wide-berthed caesurae,

Plangent assholes wink

in genuflecting transparency.


False maps beckon to

madrigals masturbating

in violin cases ……. splish splack!



*Profound, isn’t it? I scavenged nine key words from other people’s workshop poems. Can you guess which ones? Someone in the group borrowed Anne Sexton's palindrome without attribution. That gave me the idea of taking a word or phrase from each person's poem. I think it’s time for me to apply for a grant.

XXXXXXX

DIFFERENT STROKES



I could climb a peak

in faraway Sri Lanka.

But …… since I’m a geek

I’ll climb in bed, tweak my head

and write a rhyming tanka.


or….


You can scale a peak

in Faraway Sri Lanka.

When it’s thrills I seek,

I prefer to tweak some lines

and write a rhyming tanka.



F.Y.I


I’m not from Japan.

I’m no geisha with a fan.

I’m just a poet

with a short attention span

rhyming tanka ‘cause I can.

XXXXXXX

OH, HOW I HATE TO GET UP IN THE MORNING  (HAIKU)


My alarm clock has
just one button, and I can’t
turn the damned thing off.

Waking up with a
hard-on is a lot more fun
when it isn’t yours.

XXXXXXX

Ain't That Bad? (after Maya Angelou's poem of the same name)


Dancin' the Beer Barrel Polka
Eatin' Kielbasi and kraut
Diggin' that funky accordian
Lettin' it all hang out.


Puttin' down that hairnet
Loosenin' my bun
Wavin' my babushka
Ain’t I havin’ fun?


Hearin' Frankie Yankovic
Fixin' some knishes
Listenin' to Liberace
While I dry the dishes


Get down, Lech Walesa
Z. Brzezinski, too
Write, Joseph Conrad
(CONRAD? Heck, who knew?)


Now ain't they bad?
An' ain't they Polish?
An' ain't they Polish?
An' ain't they Bad?
An' ain't they bad?
An' ain't they Polish?
An' ain't they fine?


Pink like the first blush of morning
When the sun comes up and turns darkness into day
Pink like a cervix when it's giving birth
And a layette when a baby girl is on the way.


Andrew Golata in the ring
The Pope in the Vatican Court
Roman Polanski and Rubenstein
Pink men of every sort.


Dressing in navy and white and beige
Knockin' back vodka mash
Livin' our lives with zest and grace
Ain't we got panache?


Now ain't we bad?
An' ain't we Polish?
An' ain't we Polish?
An' ain't we bad?
An' ain't we bad?
An' ain't we Polish?
An' ain't we fine?

XXXXXXX

ODE TO A DEPARTED LOVER AT DAYBREAK*


O, my plum! My lump!
Somber stone of
my awakening.

Above the weeping table
your scent hangs
heavy as an iron kettle.

I drown in the chipped bowl
of your laughter, deserted
like the dwarf whores at dawn.


*with apologies to Pablo Naruda. whose style I was emulating.

XXXXXXX

A DEADLIER SIN



Wanting what belongs

to someone else

is not as

bad

as envying

his happiness

in possessing it.

XXXXXXX

ASSPHODEL (after William Carlos Williams' Asphodel)

It is difficult
to get the news from pussy
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.

XXXXXXX

PUSSY (After Adrienne Rich's Fox)


I needed pussy badly
but for the long time
none had come near me
I craved to feel
her pelt and needed
fierce and sacrificial tail

I needed history of pussy recognition
from a triangulated face
but I settled for
sixteen volumes of
poetry and four books
of nonfiction prose
translated into German Spanish
Swedish Dutch Hebrew Greek
Italian and Japanese

Numerous awards fellowships
and prizes including the
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
The Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize
for Poetry the Fund for Human Dignity
Award of the National Gay Task Force
The Lambda Book Award
the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
for Poetry the National Book Award
The Poet’s Prize the
MacArthur Fellowship
and most recently
The Dorothea Tanning Prize of the
Academy of American Poets and
The Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award

Now I'm nominated again
for a National Book Award
but I don't need another prize
I have run through briars of legend
come a long way down
and I am in want of pussy

XXXXXXX

MY OLD FLAME (TANKA)

I used to want to
fuck him but now I just want
to fuck with his head.
It’s my way of letting him
know I still care about him.

XXXXXXX

Tempus Fugit
RISE AND SHINE   (HAIKU)
 
If youth but knew and
age but could, then all old men
would have morning wood.

XXXXXXX

Who Says You Can't Pick Your Parents?
INCUBUS (TANKA)

If Charles Bukowski
knocked up Dorothy Parker
I'd be their love child.
I'd skip the amenities
and rhyme the obscenities.

XXXXXXX

JACK AND JILL (HAIKU)


I’ll hang around and
catch you the next time you fall ........

if I’m still standing.

XXXXXXX

Here's my latest belle and play post on myspace.com, which Ken quickly deleted. Can't say that I blame him, poor fellow. I'm running the poor old guy ragged! With any luck it will be the last. I once told Ken if he'd stop lying about me, I'd stop telling the truth about him. That would be a win-win situation.

One last thing: I forgot to mention, I was also, according to the Gospel of Ken, (see above, Second Person Singular) the young Bangladeshi woman who came to primesingles looking for a wealthy older man who would bring her and her young son to America. Ken posted bittersweet fantasies about having the resources to do this. He wanted to have a child with her. The four of them would be a family. He was obviously just being his loveable old narcissistic windbag self, and some of his readers questioned his sincerity. He angrily lectured them on the terrible hardships women endure in Bangladesh, telling them he longed to rescue this brave and selfless young mother from her plight, but was powerless to do so. Were he not impoverished, he lamented, he would provide for her and the child (children?) and she would lavish love and gratitude on him in return. His last, best hope for a happy old age was denied him. Now I find out that he believed she was actually me! But then, who wasn't me? Most bizarre of all was his claim that I was Leslie herself; "Leslie" being the name of the committee who administered the website, enforced the rules, flagged objectionable material and bounced people from the site. Damn, I'm good!

XXXXXXX

Oops I Did It Again
Ken is puzzled. He asks, "What kind of person saves posts?" Well, let's see..... Writers, for one. Also, people who are contemplating lawsuits. Nothing like having all the posts, chats and IM's right at your fingertips. Without hard evidence, everything is just accusations and counter-accusations (he said, she said). Too bad Ken and I can't post our medical records on the internet for all to see. Then the readers could decide for themselves whether I have "multiple personality disorder" or whether he "hears voices". One of us is deranged, but which one? Hmmmm. Let's look at the facts of the case. Everyone knows it's impossible for someone to appear online as several people simultaneously. Especially if there's a problem of abuse on the website. Primesingles, a technologically sophisticated dating site with thousands of users, runs software that identifies you by your IP number. No one can be in Georgia and St. Louis and Bangladesh and Capetown posting and chatting at the same time. Ken got the mostly middle-aged women who hung on his every word all in a tizzy. He was delighted. During our long, late night phone conversations, he'd laugh at the way he'd pulled the wool over their eyes. He called them "morons". He'd say, "Why does it bother you? It's just words on a screen. It doesn't mean anything". But it did. And I was not the only victim. Unfortunately for Ken, the line between fantasy and reality soon disappeared - as it often does in mental illness - and he came to believe his own story. He freaked out, and almost two years later, he's still freaking. But it is a great story, and as luck (karma?) would have it, I wrote my book before he wrote his. Ken's last novel came out in 1970 (if you don't count the self-published stuff he couldn't find a publisher for) Seems to me he has a very, very bad case of writer's block. Get busy, Ken! I'm rootin' for ya, kiddo!

IT'S MY BLOG AND I'LL RANT IF I WANT TO


The Man Who Types has posted a story he calls "Second Person Singular" on myspace.com. I found it when I googled the phrase "belle and play", which is the subtitle of my upcoming novella-in-verse. The same old lies and some new whoppers that caught me by surprise. I posted a reply, which he deleted, but not before several people on his "friends list" read it and wrote to me. Apparently, they are already on to him. They offered sympathy and support, but I'm gonna vent anyway. Because I can. My next post is the one he deleted from his webpage.
Feel free to check out my blog on myspace.com.

XXXXXXX

Ken! How wonderful to find you on myspace.com, still spinning your tatty web of deceit! It must get harder and harder as time goes by. Selfish as I am, I love that you devote so much time and energy to writing about moi. Most of it isn't true, but it’s the thought that counts. I could go through your long-ass post and pick out the self-serving "embellishments", but you are, after all, a fiction writer. Do your thing. I'll just make a couple of corrections: I am one year younger, not one year older than you. My family did come over on the Mayflower - not that I give a hoot. I look pretty good, especially naked, and the men I am with all seem to enjoy my company. In every way. And Ken? You didn't lose interest in me. You lost face when I volunteered the fact that I had bested you at your own game. My intention was to elude being recognized - not to entrap you, but you felt cuckolded, and you came up with an ingenious and bizarre cover story about my having "played you". Partly true, but not in the manner and not for the reasons you stated. You had been sharing very personal information about me and my family in the chatroom and I caught you doing it. No big deal. I didn't post about it, or tell anyone what you had done. Why would I? But you flipped the script and posted about it on the message board, attacking me and casting yourself in the role of victim. And two years later you are still playing the victim and obsessively posting all over the internet about something that no reasonably sane person could believe ever happened. Your rants about Belle, filled with rage and self-pity, reveal a lot about you. You are a miserably unhappy man. A recluse. A self-defined " has-been", whose life "stinks" and whose only remaining pleasures (other than his vices) are reliving, embellishing, and (when he thinks he can get away with it) fabricating his accomplishments from forty years ago (ouch!); lecturing the great unwashed from the privacy, safety and comfort of his Brooklyn hermitage about everything from art to politics, and endlessly rewriting and publicly posting a libelously fictionalized version of Belle and Play's brief internet relationship. Too late for damage control, Ken. The cat is out of the bag. And you of all people should know that. If I may be permitted to mix my metaphors, you can't unring a Belle.

XXXXXXX

PAYBACK IS A BITCH


Laughter is
the best medicine.

And sometimes
it is the best revenge.

XXXXXXX

COLORS


I once loved a man
whose name was Brown.
He was white, but
I called him Mr. Blue.

His red-rimmed eyes
saw only shades of gray.

His long green was long gone.

The future is black, he said.

XXXXXXX

SIZE QUEEN


Anyone who begins
his bio
with the words
My resume is six pages long
has already said
too much.

XXXXXXX

TINTINNABULATION (TANKA)



Is constant ringing
in your ears driving you nuts?
It’s not tinnitus.
If it’s words*, not sounds, and you’re
a poet - it’s punnitus.

*Warning: If you say them aloud, it's punnilingus.

XXXXXXX

A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO LOSE (HAIKU)


Sad to see you’ve sunk

so low you’re posting about

Michaelangelo.

XXXXXXX

THE MAD POET



He’s not someone
I would date.
He’s got too much
on his plate.


Alcoholic.
Paranoid.
Schizophrenic.
Unemployed.*


He’s bipolar
and he’s bi.
Not a
user - friendly guy.


Sadomasochistic,
too.
Oh, the kinky
things he’d do!


All those voices
in his head.
Ice picks
underneath the bed?


I still love his
sorry ass.
But I think
I’m gonna pass.



*He’s technically underemployed, not unemployed - but that didn’t scan.

XXXXXXX

IF I LOVE AGAIN (HAIKU)




Drunk, crazy and

mean as camel shit isn’t

what I’m looking for.

XXXXXXX

My novella-in-verse Unreqwerty'd Love will soon be available in both hard cover and electronic book format from AuthorHouse. And for those who can't get enough of Belle and Play, there is a book deal with a major publisher in the works. Stay tuned.

XXXXXXX

TOO MANY KOOKS SPOIL THE MESSAGE BOARD



You believed

most of the Delicious Demon posts

were from me.


That was bad enough.


Now you also believe

most of the Delicious Demon posts

are about you.

XXXXXXX

SPAMERICA


When the terrorists
annihilate us
we'll die happy.
All the men will have
huge, rock-hard erections
and all the women
will be thrilled.
Everyone will have
an advanced degree.
We'll all be ordained
ministers and
everybody's mortgage
application
will be approved
at the lowest rate.
There will be
candy dishes filled
with Vicodan
and Valium
to sedate us as
we watch the first images
of mass destruction
on free cable TV.

Life is good.

XXXXXXX

STOOL SAMPLE (SENRYU)


Confucius say poem

should be obscene but not turd.

I have my standards.

XXXXXXX

INTIMATIONS OF MORTALITY  (HAIKU)



Life is an apple.

Death the worm coiled at its core.

I take slow, small bites.

XXXXXXX

THE BIG ENCHILADA



God is male,

he’s old, he’s white.

His beard is long, his

asshole’s tight.


He watches everything

you do

and then he throws

The Book at you.

XXXXXXX

RETIREMENT     (HAIKU)


Now that I’ve nothing

to do, there’s never enough

time to do it in.

XXXXXXX

THE ENVELOPE, PLEASE    (TANKA)


PORT BLAIR, India

• The last few dozen remaining members


• of an ancient indigenous tribe in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands said they they raced up a mountain to escape a devastating tsunami — and avoid extinction.

And the award for
"Best Reality Show" of
two thousand four goes
to …….. God, who wrote, produced and
directed the mega hit.

XXXXXXX

THE POT IS CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK



The pot is calling the kettle black.
It may or may not be true.
The kettle answers the pot right back,
I'm not as black as you.


It may or may not be true.
It's difficult to say.
If the kettle decided to sue,
the pot might win the day


It's difficult to say
who's black and who is not.
You can't get DNA from
a kettle or a pot.


Who's black and who is not?
We will never know.
The kettle hates the pot.
Alas, ‘twas always so.


We will never know
who started the attack.
Back and forth they go!
The pot is calling the kettle black.

XXXXXXX

SOUR GRAPES AT THE SUPERMARKET (HAIKU)


The circus freaks who

waddle up and down the aisles

all wear wedding rings.

XXXXXXX

Men seldom
make passes
at girls who
wear glasses.
 
I don't have
adventures
with men who
wear dentures.
 
And I don't
go nowhere
with guys who have
nose hair.

XXXXXXX

SCHOOL DAZE


Charlemagne and
Charles Martel
Alas, poor Deeplip
knew them well
Sophocles and
Pericles
She crammed for
those damned SATS
Malthus
Mather
Proust
Cezanne
Galileo
Thomas Mann
Darwin
Locke and
Thomas More
Louis VII and Eleanor
Now at last
it's payback time
She knows how
to make them rhyme

XXXXXXX

BABY’S FIRST NURSERY UNRHYMES*



One, two,
buckle my seatbelt.
Three, four,
shut the window.
Five, six,
pick up toys.
Seven, eight,
put them away.
Nine, ten,
a big fat rooster.


Rain, rain,
go away.
Come again
some other time.


A diller a dollar
a ten-o’clock scholar!
What makes you come so soon?
You used to come at ten o’clock,
but now you come at twelve.


Yankee doodle went to town
riding on a pony.
Stuck a feather in his cap
and called it an egg noodle.


Hey! diddle, diddle,
the cat and the banjo,
the cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
to see such sport,
and the dish ran away with the knife.


Jack and Jill went up the hill
to fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown.
And then Jill fell down, too.


*A National Book Award winning poet's response (in a Q and A) to a teacher who wanted to introduce her class to poetry writing: Tell them a poem shouldn't rhyme.

XXXXXXX

AND YOUR MAMA, TOO (SENRYU)


I thought all along

I was writing haiku. Wrong!

It's senryu. Who knew?

XXXXXXX

POINTY HAT’S POV


Eye of newt and
Toe of frog

Read it all in
Deeplip’s blog

XXXXXXX

GARDEN PARTY (HAIKU)


The skunk looked around,

scratched his head and said sadly,

Where did they all go?

XXXXXXX

RECIPE FROM AN OLD LADY'S HAIKU COOKBOOK


They say revenge is
a dish best served cold, but that's
a matter of taste.

It can be either
hot or cold, as long as it's
fresh and served promptly.

XXXXXXX

ONE, KEN …. TWO, KEN


When it’s time to go to bed
I lay my body down
But I can’t sleep
So I count sheep
And all of them are brown

XXXXXXX

THE LE(A)PER


There was an old man in Bay Ridge
who kept all his dreams in the fridge.
And now they’re so old
and covered with mold
he’s throwing himself off the bridge.

XXXXXXX

OLD AGE IS A BITCH


Hide your heart from sight, lock your dreams at night, it could happen to you ..... (Johnny Burke/Jimmy Van Heusen)


He'd forgotten just what it was for

Till Lady Luck knocked at his door

She put on a teddy

And said, "Are you ready?"

He sang, Give me five minutes more*


* Sammy Cahn / Jule Styne

XXXXXXX

KAMIKAZE



A phoenix trailing

flames falls into the sea

and sinks beneath the waves.


No one sees it disappear.

It is, after all,

a mythical bird.


No flight plan, no

black box - just blips on my

electrocardiogram.

XXXXXXX

SPLENDOR IN GRASS (TANKA)


Confucius say when
man cannot keep up with her
smart woman lie down
and give him chance to catch up.
Then they have Hallmark Moment.

XXXXXXX

HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO WOMEN (HAIKU)


Not the Messiah?
You picked a hell of a time
to tell me that, hon……

And all along, I
believed you were the answer
to a spinster’s prayer.

Oh, gnashing of teeth!
Oh, rending of garments, and
shrill lamentations!