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The Headliner And The Breadliner

Moko, the Educated Ape is here,
The pet of vaudeville, so the posters say,
And every night the gaping people pay
To see him in his panoply appear;
To see him pad his paunch with dainty cheer,
Puff his perfecto, swill champagne, and sway
Just like a gentleman, yet all in play,
Then bow himself off stage with brutish leer.

And as to-night, with noble knowledge crammed,
I 'mid this human compost take my place,
I, once a poet, now so dead and damned,
The woeful tears half freezing on my face:
"O God!" I cry, "let me but take his shape,
Moko's, the Blest, the Educated Ape."

poem by Robert William Service
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The Spirit Of A Sponge

I dreamed one night that Stephen Massett died,
And for admission up at Heaven applied.
'Who are you?' asked St. Peter. Massett said:
'Jeems Pipes, of Pipesville.' Peter bowed his head,
Opened the gates and said: 'I'm glad to know you,
And wish we'd something better, sir, to show you.'
'Don't mention it,' said Stephen, looking bland,
And was about to enter, hat in hand,
When from a cloud below such fumes arose
As tickled tenderly his conscious nose.
He paused, replaced his hat upon his head,
Turned back and to the saintly warden said,
O'er his already sprouting wings: 'I swear
I smell some broiling going on down there!'
So Massett's paunch, attracted by the smell,
Followed his nose and found a place in Hell.

poem by Ambrose Bierce
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A Woman's Lament

Why are men always chefs, but women just cooks?
How come wrinkles age a woman, but enhance a man's good looks?
Why is grey at the temples of a man debonair,
But the same on a woman has her tearing out her hair?
Some men have a paunch they're proud to display,
A woman flaunting hers would be viewed with dismay.
At forty, an eligible bachelor he'll be,
A female a spinster, unplucked from the tree
A man is well-built, a woman plain fat
And men don't get cellulite. What's fair about that?
And how many married men play golf or catch fishes,
Whilst women are home washing baby and dishes?
So for equal rights and equal pay you can pass new legislation,
But you'll never change the attitudes that cause discrimination.

(Written at home on 05/02/06

poem by Eve Clements
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The God of small things

A widow for six years, Ammu,
Unknown for sexual agitation,
Only known for love of twin kids,
All of a sudden fell in lust,
Her brown breast tingling,
Her brown haunches itching,
For Velutha, the household untouchable,
For his black calloused palm
And chocolate ribbed paunch.
She went feral and found her way
And got him and had him in her sway.

The brown wanted the black.
The soft wanted the tout.
The plump wanted the steel.
Proximity was handy.
Hunger was the need.
Biology set to act.
Guilt got a back seat.
A fountain in love-in-Tokyo.

[...] Read more

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Prayer To Pipal Pillaiyar

Gorgeously pregnant with varieties of dumplings
Vadas, appams, puffed and flaked rice
Cooked, baked chickpeas and raw rice idlis
Payasam with ghee-fried cashews and raisins
Added to the core of sweets
Fruits of jack, jumblem, mango, banana, wood-apple
Guava and of modernity simla apple, pineapple
And tangerines; Also on availability whole sugarcanes
Main offering of potful of cooked rice
With little dal purified on with ghee
Whole and halved coconuts, betel and areca
Little water from panchapaathra....Pillaiar
Signalling to nap, Your paunch belched uptrunked
This peepal tree on this tank-resort
You chose to sit under for rest..
Gentle breeze peepal tree strokes so sweet
Mind-sweeping and You're in a pleasant mood
Delicacies bulge though in real bulges your omniscience
In full prostration seeking Your blessings oh Lord!

poem by Indira Renganathan
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Kites

The distraught weather passed
above the ponderous hands
of icicles and charcoals
and amongst these phantasms
I watched a phalanx of
unfettered kites adrift
the lackadaisical paunch clouds
and the willowing of their
cavernous vaults

The diamond shadows -
perfectly symmetrical
and atrociously sharp -
casted ominous patterns
on my lifeless body
staring at their distant flight
and writhing amongst
the felled autumn leaves

Dry as an unaddressed telegram,

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poem by Norman Santos
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The Song Of The Sundowner

I'm the monarch of valley, and hill, and plain,
And the king of this golden land.
A continent broad is my vast domain,
And its people at my command.
My tribute I levy on high and low,
And I chuckle at Fortune's frown;
No matter how far in the day I go,
I'm at home when the sun goes down.

In the drought-stricken plains of the lone Paroo,
When the rainless earth is bare,
I take toll from the shepherd and jackeroo,
And I sample their humble fare.
Not a fig care I though the stock may die,
And the sun-cracked plains be brown;
I can make for the east, where the grass is high
I'm at home when the sun goes down.

When river and creek their banks o'er leap,
And the flood rolls raging by;

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poem by Thomas E. Spencer
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The Valley Of Dry Bones

With crow bones all the land is white,
From the gates of morn to the gates of night.
Picked clean, they lie on the cumbered ground,
And the politician's paunch is round;
And he strokes it down and across as he sings:
'I've eaten my fill of the legs and wings,
The neck, the back, the pontifical nose,
Breast, belly and gizzard, for everything goes.
The meat that's dark (and there's none that's white)
Exceeded the need of my appetite,
But I've bravely stuck to the needful work
That a hungry domestic hog would shirk.
I've eaten the fowl that the Fates commend
To reluctant lips of the People's Friend.
Rank unspeakably, bitter as gall,
Is the bird, but I've eaten it, feathers and all.
I'm a dutiful statesman, I am, although
I really don't like a diet of crow.
So I've dined all alone in a furtive way,
But my platter I've cleaned every blessed day.

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poem by Ambrose Bierce
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The Battle Of The Bulge

This year an ocean trip I took, and as I am a Scot
And like to get my money's worth I never missed a meal.
In spite of Neptune's nastiness I ate an awful lot,
Yet felt as fit as if we sailed upon an even keel.
But now that I am home again I'm stricken with disgust;
How many pounds of fat I've gained I'd rather not divulge:
Well, anyway I mean to take this tummy down or bust,
So here I'm suet-strafing in the
Battle of the Bulge.
No more will sausage, bacon, eggs provide my breakfast fare;
On lobster I will never lunch, with mounds of mayonnaise.
At tea I'll Spartanly eschew the chocolate éclair;
Roast duckling and péche melba shall not consummate my days.
No more nocturnal ice-box raids, midnight spaghetti feeds;
On slabs of pâté de foie gras I vow I won't indulge:
Let bran and cottage cheese suffice my gastronomic needs,
And lettuce be my ally in the
Battle of the Bulge.

To hell with you, ignoble paunch, abhorrent in my sight!

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poem by Robert William Service
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The Living Dead

Since I have come to years sedate
I see with more and more acumen
The bitter irony of Fate,
The vanity of all things human.
Why, just to-day some fellow said,
As I surveyed Fame's outer portal:
"By gad! I thought that you were dead."
Poor me, who dreamed to be immortal!

But that's the way with many men
Whose name one fancied time-defying;
We thought that they were dust and then
We found them living by their dying.
Like dogs we penmen have our day,
To brief best-sellerdom elected;
And then, "thumbs down," we slink away
And die forgotten and neglected.

Ah well, my lyric fling I've had;
A thousand bits of verse I've minted;

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poem by Robert William Service
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