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when haiku wants food
we mostly order pizza
thin for him, mines thick

haiku by Chris Bowen
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Overweight with Food

Are you just a tub of lard and
Vastly overweight?
Do you think that when you die you'll
Need a piano crate
To act as coffin for your frame? -
Chosen as you die in shame, with
Only you to take the blame
For years of eating much the same:
A daily calorific fest
Gourmands of your ilk digest!

Is your heart in final fling and
Nearly set to burst?
Are your arteries bunged and clogged and
Feeling now the worst
For wear? - your aneurysm fit to blow
While blood as thick as rising dough
Cries 'Halt! ' to any hope of flow:
A dreadful state to put on show
In front of any nurse!
Best you hail a hearse.

Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Salad is Incompatible with Life

Yes, my waist is fifty inches -
Big for me because I'm short.
And yes, I like my cheddar cheese
When partnered with a vintage port.

Okay, okay, that double cream
Is always served with pud,
And cake and biscuits with my tea
Are just no bloody good

For my poor hardened arteries,
But see my point of view,
Please dear wifey if you please,
A Salad makes me spew!

I'd rather eat a bowl of air
Than crunch away on greens;
Drink water from the toilet bowl
Or nibble on my jeans!

But salad! Are you there?
You know it makes me snappy -
So let me fill my face with grub,
Stay fat, and die young happy!

Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Pizza Pie

take and give the Pizza pie I like,
place in the plate the Pizza pie that break,
some looks fat but flat, for the Pizza pie
I share is sweet and delicious

one, two three, the Pizza Pie is fine,
the bucket I see is big and small like me,
other is given free and some is for sale
take a little bite, the smooth and sweet
Pizza pie is good for the whole merry day

have you ever broken a Pie that color
green, blue and like chocolate the color is
gray, but with the Pizza Pie I have is good
and tasty and nobody will say, I am not
hungry, come have one for two or three to
make you happy and everyone will always
shout have a happy day

Pizza Pie, Pizza Pie, the flavor of the
season and let everybody taste the Pizza
Pie I made is but as sweet and wonderful
snack for all children that is hungry

Hmmmm it’s yummy, come and join,
taste again the Pizza Pie is free …..

poem by Antonio Liao
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Syrup Sponge

Pour a pint of cream
Upon my spongy bulge!

Scoop me with a
Hefty spoon;

Taste my essence -
Do you swoon?

Feed your self-esteem; indulge
In me until you burst -

Death by syrup sponge - you're cursed!

And as the count in inches gain
Upon your weary waist, the strain
Will tell, but you'll not care -
Steeped in sponge, you're unaware!

Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Through the eyes of a Field Coronet (Epic)

Introduction

In the kaki coloured tent in Umbilo he writes
his life’s story while women, children and babies are dying,
slowly but surely are obliterated, he see how his nation is suffering
while the events are notched into his mind.

Lying even heavier on him is the treason
of some other Afrikaners who for own gain
have delivered him, to imprisonment in this place of hatred
and thoughts go through him to write a book.

Prologue

The Afrikaner nation sprouted
from Dutchmen,
who fought decades without defeat
against the super power Spain

mixed with French Huguenots
who left their homes and belongings,
with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Associate this then with the fact

that these people fought formidable
for seven generations
against every onslaught that they got
from savages en wild animals

becoming marksmen, riding
and taming wild horses
with one bullet per day
to hunt a wild antelope,

who migrated right across the country
over hills in mass protest
and then you have
the most formidable adversary
and then let them fight

in a natural wilderness
where the hunter,
the sniper and horseman excels
and any enemy is at a lost.

Let them then also be patriotic
into their souls,
believe in and read
out of the word of God

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poem by Gert Strydom
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Confessio Amantis. Explicit Prologus

Incipit Liber Primus

Naturatus amor nature legibus orbem
Subdit, et vnanimes concitat esse feras:
Huius enim mundi Princeps amor esse videtur,
Cuius eget diues, pauper et omnis ope.
Sunt in agone pares amor et fortuna, que cecas
Plebis ad insidias vertit vterque rotas.
Est amor egra salus, vexata quies, pius error,
Bellica pax, vulnus dulce, suaue malum.

I may noght strecche up to the hevene
Min hand, ne setten al in evene
This world, which evere is in balance:
It stant noght in my sufficance
So grete thinges to compasse,
Bot I mot lete it overpasse
And treten upon othre thinges.
Forthi the Stile of my writinges
Fro this day forth I thenke change
And speke of thing is noght so strange,
Which every kinde hath upon honde,
And wherupon the world mot stonde,
And hath don sithen it began,
And schal whil ther is any man;
And that is love, of which I mene
To trete, as after schal be sene.
In which ther can noman him reule,
For loves lawe is out of reule,
That of tomoche or of tolite
Welnyh is every man to wyte,
And natheles ther is noman
In al this world so wys, that can
Of love tempre the mesure,
Bot as it falth in aventure:
For wit ne strengthe may noght helpe,
And he which elles wolde him yelpe
Is rathest throwen under fote,
Ther can no wiht therof do bote.
For yet was nevere such covine,
That couthe ordeine a medicine
To thing which god in lawe of kinde
Hath set, for ther may noman finde
The rihte salve of such a Sor.
It hath and schal ben everemor
That love is maister wher he wile,
Ther can no lif make other skile;
For wher as evere him lest to sette,
Ther is no myht which him may lette.
Bot what schal fallen ate laste,

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poem by John Gower
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Feeling Out Of Sorts?

Feeling out of sorts these days?
Want to know what you can do?
Need help? Here are 50 ways,
Maybe you'll benefit from a few

ROTMS

SYMPTOMS OF SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

1. Changing sleep patterns: restlessness, hot feet, waking up two or three times a night. Feeling tired after you wake up and sleepy off and on during the day.
There is something called the Triad Sleep Pattern that occurs for many: you sleep for about 2-3 hours, wake up, go back to sleep for another couple of hours, wake again, and go back to sleep again. For others, the sleep requirements have changed. You can get by on less sleep.
Lately I have been experiencing huge waves of energy running into my body from the crown. It feels good, but it keeps me awake for a long time, then subsides.

Advice: Get used to it. Make peace with it and don't worry about getting enough sleep (which often causes more insomnia) . You will be able to make it through the day if you hold thoughts of getting just what you need. You can also request your Higher Power to give you a break now and then and give you a good, deep night's sleep.

If you can't go back to sleep right away, use the waking moments to meditate, read poetry, write in your journal or look at the moon. Your body will adjust to the new pattern.

2. Activity at the crown of the head: Tingling, itching, prickly, crawling sensations along the scalp and/or down the spine. A sense of energy vibrating on top of the head, as if energy is erupting from the head in a shower. Also the sensation of energy pouring in through the crown, described as 'sprinkles'.

This may also be experienced as pressure on the crown, as if someone is pushing his/her finger into the center of your head. As I mentioned in #1, I have been experiencing huge downloads of energy through the crown.
In the past, I have felt more generalized pressure, as if my head is in a gentle vise. One man related that his hair stood on end and his body was covered with goosebumps.

Advice: This is nothing to be alarmed about. What you are experiencing is an opening of the crown chakra. The sensations mean that you are opening up to receive divine energy.

3. Sudden waves of emotion. Crying at the dropp of a hat. Feeling suddenly angry or sad with little provocation. Or inexplicably depressed. Then very happy. Emotional roller coaster. There is often a pressure or sense of emotions congested in the heart chakra (the middle of the chest) . This is not to be confused with the heart, which is located to the left of the heart chakra.

Advice: Accept your feelings as they come up and let them go. Go directly to your heart chakra and feel the emotion. Expand it outward to your all your fields and breathe deeply from the belly all the way up to your upper chest. Just feel the feeling and let it evaporate on its own. Don't direct the emotions at anyone.

You are cleaning out your past. If you want some help with this, say out loud that you intend to release all these old issues and ask your Higher Power to help you. You can also ask Grace Elohim to help you release with ease and gentleness. Be grateful that your body is releasing the see motions and not holding onto them inside where they can do harm.

One source suggests that depression is linked to letting go of relationships to people, work, etc. that no longer match us and our frequencies. When we feel guilty about letting go of these relationships, depression helps us medicate that pain.

4. Old 'stuff' seems to be coming up, as described above, and the people with whom you need to work it out (or their clones) appear in your life. Completion issues.

Or perhaps you need to work through issues of self-worth, abundance, creativity, addictions, etc. The resources or people you need to help you move through these issues start to appear.

Advice: Same as #3. Additionally, don't get too involved in analyzing these issues. Examining them too much will simply cycle you back through them over and over again at deeper and deeper levels. Get professional help if you need to and walk through it.

Do not try to avoid them or disassociate yourself from them. Embrace whatever comes up and thank it for helping you move ahead. Thank your Higher Power for giving you the opportunity to release these issues. Remember, you don't want these issues to stay stuck in your body.

5. Changes in weight. The weight gain in the US population is phenomenal. Other people may be losing weight.

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poem by Ray Lucero
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The Four Seasons : Summer

From brightening fields of ether fair disclosed,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's depth:
He comes attended by the sultry Hours,
And ever fanning breezes, on his way;
While, from his ardent look, the turning Spring
Averts her blushful face; and earth, and skies,
All-smiling, to his hot dominion leaves.
Hence, let me haste into the mid-wood shade,
Where scarce a sunbeam wanders through the gloom;
And on the dark-green grass, beside the brink
Of haunted stream, that by the roots of oak
Rolls o'er the rocky channel, lie at large,
And sing the glories of the circling year.
Come, Inspiration! from thy hermit-seat,
By mortal seldom found: may Fancy dare,
From thy fix'd serious eye, and raptured glance
Shot on surrounding Heaven, to steal one look
Creative of the Poet, every power
Exalting to an ecstasy of soul.
And thou, my youthful Muse's early friend,
In whom the human graces all unite:
Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart;
Genius, and wisdom; the gay social sense,
By decency chastised; goodness and wit,
In seldom-meeting harmony combined;
Unblemish'd honour, and an active zeal
For Britain's glory, liberty, and Man:
O Dodington! attend my rural song,
Stoop to my theme, inspirit every line,
And teach me to deserve thy just applause.
With what an awful world-revolving power
Were first the unwieldy planets launch'd along
The illimitable void! thus to remain,
Amid the flux of many thousand years,
That oft has swept the toiling race of men,
And all their labour'd monuments away,
Firm, unremitting, matchless, in their course;
To the kind-temper'd change of night and day,
And of the seasons ever stealing round,
Minutely faithful: such the All-perfect hand!
That poised, impels, and rules the steady whole.
When now no more the alternate Twins are fired,
And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze,
Short is the doubtful empire of the night;
And soon, observant of approaching day,
The meek'd-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews,
At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east:
Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow;
And, from before the lustre of her face,

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poem by James Thomson
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100 STD's 10,000 MTD's

There are STD's, sexually transmitted diseases.
and then there are MTD's, meat transmitted diseases.

The latter take a lot more lives.

*********

In Animal Flesh: Blood Sweat Tears as well as Carcinogens Cholesterol Colon Bacteria

Animal products kill more people annually in the US than
tobacco, alcohol, traffic accidents, war, domestic violence,
guns, and drugs combined. USAMRID wrote that consumption of pig flesh caused the world's most lethal pandemic in WW1,
euphemistically called flu. Anthrax
used to be called wool sorters'
disease. Smallpox used to be called
cow pox or kine pox because of
its origin in animal flesh.
.

WHAT'S IN A BURGER? BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS (AS WELL AS BIOTERRORISM)

POISONS IN ANIMAL AND FISH FLESH... A PARTIAL LIST

a partial list in alphabetical order

acidification diseases
addiction (to trioxypurines)
adrenalin (secreted by terrorized
animals before and during slaughter)

ANTIBIOTICS (too many to list) (crowded factory farm animals standing in their own feces are often infected)

BACTERIA
creiophilic bacteria survive
the freezing of animal flesh
thermophilic bacteria survive
the baking boiling and roasting

bacteriophages (viruses FDA allows to
be injected)
blood
colon bacteria.. euphemistically
called ecoli animals defecate
all over themselves in terror
John Harvey Kellogg MD studied
the exponential rate into the billions

BSE DISEASES, PRIONS IN SPECIES FROM GELATIN (JELLO ETC)
Mad Chicken

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poem by O. Anna Niemus
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Paper Thin

Rich and wealthy canvas
Clustered up in jewels
Finding all your heavyweights
Are featherweights and fools
Broken all your promises
Broken all your paper plates
Clustered in gold
Crusted in gold
Heavy and hollow
Look at the shape were in
Find us here
Paper thin
Heavy and humble
Look at the shape were in
Find us here
Paper thin
In origami cities
In nations build on sand
Love got bend right outta shape
Things got outta hand
Polystyrene skylines
Papier mch smiles
Rusted and bruised
Tarnished and frail
Heavy and hollow
Look at the shape were in
Find us here
Paper thin
Heavy and humble
Look at the shape were in
Find us here
Paper thin
Stars scrape the moon
And the moon scrapes the sky
We stand beneath
Wondering why
Stars scrape the moon
And the moon scrapes the sky
We stand beneath
Wondering, wondering why
Paper buys the men
The men that make the bomb
The bomb that makes this world
Paper thin!
Money markets crumble
Gentle as a drum
But if you see me stumble, im
Paper thin!
Life is but a fragile thing
So delicate and pure

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song performed by Abc
Added by Lucian Velea
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Downtown Pizza

On Lake Ave. next to the Pelican,
you can have great dishes of Italian.
From pizza’s, subs to Calzones,
they deliver, they bring it to your home.
I have a photo of Razel and Mel,
posing on the counter with a pizza smell.
I have a slice of pizza and a mountain dew,
I watch t.v. and kick off my shoes.
They have signature white pizza with Stromboli meat,
stuffed with lots of cheese, pepperoni, it’s a treat.
Your dog can drink agua outside in a bowl,
while you wait for your order to go.
This is a laid back casual pizza joint,
they make great pizza and Italian dishes,
they won’t disappoint.

Written By Suzae Chevalier on October 13,2011
www.puppetpoems.com

poem by Christina Sunrise
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Downtown Pizza

On Lake Ave. next to the Pelican,
you can have great dishes of Italian.
From pizza's, subs to Calzones,
they deliver, they bring it to your home.
I have a photo of Razel and Mel,
posing on the counter with a pizza smell.
I have a slice of pizza and a mountain dew,
I watch t.v. and kick off my shoes.
They have signature white pizza with Stromboli meat,
stuffed with lots of cheese, pepperoni, it's a treat.
Your dog can drink agua outside in a bowl,
while you wait for your order to go.
This is a laid back casual pizza joint,
they make great pizza and Italian dishes,
they won't disappoint.

Written By Suzae Chevalier on October 13,2011
www.puppetpoems.com

poem by Suzae Chevalier
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Double Helix Abecedarian - Xylophonic Resonance He Licks Enigmatic

XYLOPHONIC RESONANCE HE LICKS ENIGMATIC
Kindly refer to notes. and see Temptations and Poetic Pizza Extravaganza below :)

Xylophonic Resonance
double helix abecedarian

The first line begins with A and ends with Z
the next line begins with Z and ends with A
The next line begins with B and ends with Y
The next line begins with Y and ends with B
The next line begins with C and ends with X
The next line begins with X and ends with C

A to Z top down A to Z bottom up

All fizzle, finish frazzled, launched with fizZ.
Zero dreams teem when spirit seems at seA
Because most adepts of philosophY
Yearn for zenith seldom dwell on ebB,
Carpe diem value, seeking sea, sun, seX.
Xylem tree of life’s cannibalistiC
Desires corrupt deeds most men seW,
With survival’s urge soon lost indeeD.
Events churn causal patterns, AsimoV
Viewed clearly, took as starship journey cuE
Finding worlds which may appeal to yoU,
Unknown reader from beyond Time’s gulF -
Great divide between those past, those lefT -
Time travellers peruse these lines to sinG
High praise of poets who’ll know no more springS.
Spontaneousl prose poem picks pensive patH
In patter pattern, feet dance to empoweR.
Rhythm harmonious, need no alibI,
Joins sense, style versatile, from mind's H.Q.,
Questions seeks, finds answers. Soujourn’s hadJ
Knowledge acquires to share more than to keeP,
Pipes clear to others drifting through the darK.
Lark sings dawn’s welcome song, and each man’s taO
Opens connections, on life’s sea a-saiL
Ma d, sad, glad, bad, for threescore years and teN
Never certain of his mortal aiM,
Nor sure to gain posthumous fame, acclaiM,
Making ends meet in hope to rise agaiN
On judgement day should trust and faith prevaiL.
Life-spans increase but trite hullabaloO
Prepares too few for winding sheet, corpse starK,

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poem by Jonathan Robin
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(Forgiveness Poem) An Open Battle Field

My heart is an open battle field
Shoot your bombs.
Lay your mines.
With every wound received.
I will be fine.
Swimming through the time
Let me hit the point of being numb.

Controlling the masses
Just bow down.
And take it in the rear.
Watch as you lose another one you hold so dear.
Falling off the radar.
Who are you?
What are you doing here?
Is this where the poor live?
How long do you think you can survive?

My heart is an open battle field
Shoot your bombs.
Lay your mines.
With every wound received.
I will be fine.
Swimming through the time
Let me hit the point of being numb.

The world is committing suicide.
Everyone just swallow your pride.
If you expect the help from others.
You got to give all you have give.
Lord in my heart let me forgive.
No matter my hated enemy.

My heart is an open battle field
Shoot your bombs.
Lay your mines.
With every wound received.
I will be fine.
Swimming through the time
Let me hit the point of being numb.

It is a forced occurrence.
Not as we want but as we must.
The rules of greed.
In heaven I concede.
Their can't be this hierarchy.
Ruled under one thumb.
The gloom of this darkness.
Follow the leader.

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poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
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The Poem of Imru al Qays

Stop, oh my friends, let us pause to weep over the remembrance of my beloved.
Here was her abode on the edge of the sandy desert between Dakhool and Howmal.

The traces of her encampment are not wholly obliterated even now.
For when the South wind blows the sand over them the North wind sweeps it away.

The courtyards and enclosures of the old home have become desolate;
The dung of the wild deer lies there thick as the seeds of pepper.

On the morning of our separation it was as if I stood in the gardens of our tribe,
Amid the acacia-shrubs where my eyes were blinded with tears by the smart from the bursting pods of colocynth.

As I lament thus in the place made desolate, my friends stop their camels;
They cry to me 'Do not die of grief; bear this sorrow patiently.'

Nay, the cure of my sorrow must come from gushing tears.
Yet, is there any hope that this desolation can bring me solace?

So before ever I met Unaizah, did I mourn for two others;
My fate had been the same with Ummul-Huwairith and her neighbor Ummul-Rahab in Masal.

Fair were they also, diffusing the odor of musk as they moved,
Like the soft zephyr bringing with it the scent of the clove.

Thus the tears flowed down on my breast, remembering days of love;
The tears wetted even my sword-belt, so tender was my love.

Behold how many pleasant days have I spent with fair women;
Especially do I remember the day at the pool of Darat-i-Juljul.2

On that day I killed my riding camel for food for the maidens:
How merry was their dividing my camel's trappings to be carried on their camels.

It is a wonder, a riddle, that the camel being saddled was yet unsaddled!
A wonder also was the slaughterer, so heedless of self in his costly gift!

Then the maidens commenced throwing the camel's flesh into the kettle;
The fat was woven with the lean like loose fringes of white twisted silk.

[...] Read more

poem by Imru al Qays Ibn Hujr
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The Georgics

GEORGIC I

What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star
Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod
Or marry elm with vine; how tend the steer;
What pains for cattle-keeping, or what proof
Of patient trial serves for thrifty bees;-
Such are my themes.
O universal lights
Most glorious! ye that lead the gliding year
Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild,
If by your bounty holpen earth once changed
Chaonian acorn for the plump wheat-ear,
And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift,
The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns
To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns
And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing.
And thou, for whose delight the war-horse first
Sprang from earth's womb at thy great trident's stroke,
Neptune; and haunter of the groves, for whom
Three hundred snow-white heifers browse the brakes,
The fertile brakes of Ceos; and clothed in power,
Thy native forest and Lycean lawns,
Pan, shepherd-god, forsaking, as the love
Of thine own Maenalus constrains thee, hear
And help, O lord of Tegea! And thou, too,
Minerva, from whose hand the olive sprung;
And boy-discoverer of the curved plough;
And, bearing a young cypress root-uptorn,
Silvanus, and Gods all and Goddesses,
Who make the fields your care, both ye who nurse
The tender unsown increase, and from heaven
Shed on man's sowing the riches of your rain:
And thou, even thou, of whom we know not yet
What mansion of the skies shall hold thee soon,
Whether to watch o'er cities be thy will,
Great Caesar, and to take the earth in charge,
That so the mighty world may welcome thee
Lord of her increase, master of her times,
Binding thy mother's myrtle round thy brow,
Or as the boundless ocean's God thou come,
Sole dread of seamen, till far Thule bow
Before thee, and Tethys win thee to her son
With all her waves for dower; or as a star
Lend thy fresh beams our lagging months to cheer,
Where 'twixt the Maid and those pursuing Claws
A space is opening; see! red Scorpio's self
His arms draws in, yea, and hath left thee more
Than thy full meed of heaven: be what thou wilt-
For neither Tartarus hopes to call thee king,

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poem by Virgil
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Juanita

Your rails
Your thin
Your thin paper wings
Your thin paper wings
In the winddangling
Your sun
Fly high
Your window shattering
Your rails
Your thin
Your thin paper wings
Sugar boy
Sugar boy
Riding in
Riding in
Sugar box
Sugar boy
Handheld candle sugar boy
Your rails
Your thin
Your thin paper wings
Your thin paper wings
In the wind dangling
Your sun fly high
Your window shattered in the wind
Your coca cola sign
Rattling
Rattling
Resonator [x8]
Homeless trees gathering
Outside your window bootleg babies call to you and lie among the mosquitoes
That summers fever coming
Cats are gathering outside your window
Homeless trees
Bootleg babies calling to you
Lie among lie among the mosquitoes
Your rails
Your thin
Your thin paper wings
Get up in your sun fly high
Dangling dangling
Your window shattered in the wind
The sun on your coca cola sign
Your rails
Your thin
Paper wings
Paper wings
Resonator, [x16]
Homeless trees gathering
Outside your window bootleg babies call to you and lie among the mosquitoes

[...] Read more

song performed by Underworld
Added by Lucian Velea
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

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poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Clean Plater

Some singers sing of ladies' eyes,
And some of ladies lips,
Refined ones praise their ladylike ways,
And course ones hymn their hips.
The Oxford Book of English Verse
Is lush with lyrics tender;
A poet, I guess, is more or less
Preoccupied with gender.
Yet I, though custom call me crude,
Prefer to sing in praise of food.
Food,
Yes, food,
Just any old kind of food.
Pheasant is pleasant, of course,
And terrapin, too, is tasty,
Lobster I freely endorse,
In pate or patty or pasty.
But there's nothing the matter with butter,
And nothing the matter with jam,
And the warmest greetings I utter
To the ham and the yam and the clam.
For they're food,
All food,
And I think very fondly of food.
Through I'm broody at times
When bothered by rhymes,
I brood
On food.
Some painters paint the sapphire sea,
And some the gathering storm.
Others portray young lambs at play,
But most, the female form.
“Twas trite in that primeval dawn
When painting got its start,
That a lady with her garments on
Is Life, but is she Art?
By undraped nymphs
I am not wooed;
I'd rather painters painted food.
Food,
Just food,
Just any old kind of food.
Go purloin a sirloin, my pet,
If you'd win a devotion incredible;
And asparagus tips vinaigrette,
Or anything else that is edible.
Bring salad or sausage or scrapple,
A berry or even a beet.
Bring an oyster, an egg, or an apple,
As long as it's something to eat.

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poem by Ogden Nash
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David

My thought, on views of admiration hung,
Intently ravish'd and depriv'd of tongue,
Now darts a while on earth, a while in air,
Here mov'd with praise and mov'd with glory there;
The joys entrancing and the mute surprize
Half fix the blood, and dim the moist'ning eyes;
Pleasure and praise on one another break,
And Exclamation longs at heart to speak;
When thus my Genius, on the work design'd
Awaiting closely, guides the wand'ring mind.

If while thy thanks wou'd in thy lays be wrought,
A bright astonishment involve the thought,
If yet thy temper wou'd attempt to sing,
Another's quill shall imp thy feebler wing;
Behold the name of royal David near,
Behold his musick and his measures here,
Whose harp Devotion in a rapture strung,
And left no state of pious souls unsung.

Him to the wond'ring world but newly shewn,
Celestial poetry pronounc'd her own;
A thousand hopes, on clouds adorn'd with rays,
Bent down their little beauteous forms to gaze;
Fair-blooming Innocence with tender years,
And native Sweetness for the ravish'd ears,
Prepar'd to smile within his early song,
And brought their rivers, groves, and plains along;
Majestick Honour at the palace bred,
Enrob'd in white, embroider'd o'er with red,
Reach'd forth the scepter of her royal state,
His forehead touch'd, and bid his lays be great;
Undaunted Courage deck'd with manly charms,
With waving-azure plumes, and gilded arms,
Displaid the glories, and the toils of fight,
Demanded fame, and call'd him forth to write.
To perfect these the sacred spirit came,
By mild infusion of celestial flame,
And mov'd with dove-like candour in his breast,
And breath'd his graces over all the rest.
Ah! where the daring flights of men aspire
To match his numbers with an equal fire;
In vain they strive to make proud Babel rise,
And with an earth-born labour touch the skies.
While I the glitt'ring page resolve to view,
That will the subject of my lines renew;
The Laurel wreath, my fames imagin'd shade,
Around my beating temples fears to fade;
My fainting fancy trembles on the brink,
And David's God must help or else I sink.

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poem by Thomas Parnell
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