Auntie's Anti-Poems

[AuntShecky]

It’s From Hunger

For too long I’ve been losing weight,
undernourished in this venue.
Lately I’ve begun to hate
these stale items on the menu.

Don’t order in that rich paté
or a burger with the works,
washed down with chai or a large latte.
My appetite’s for props and perks.

Spicy food? Don’t want to try it,
nor condiments on hors d’oeuvre trays.
I’m starving for a esteem-y diet
full of compliments and fatty praise.

No need to book a pricey table
at a chi-chi place to sup.
Ply me with sweet-talk, or if unable-
lie. Try whipping something up.

So if you want to know my dining credo,
remember this, my fine amigo:
feed my ego.

[PrinceMyshkin]

The only competition for your wit is your last poem - or your next! This one is truly an act of virtuosity!

[Hawkman]

Very entertaining, Auntie! I like mine with lots of sugar, lol

[AuntShecky]

Thank you, Prince and Hawkman, but methinks I messed up the meter, which oft is my Achilles' heel.

Which reminds me: don't forget, Prince and Hawkman, to post your entries in both the Form and the Subject Poetry Contests on or before
this Monday, May 10.

[Bar22do]

Your craft here is at its highest, your "ego" - well fed I hope as it assesses your abilities! a very witty, fine verse, A/Sh - thanks - and warm rgds - Bar

[qimissung]

Hello Auntie. I'm late to the party, but i would like to comment on Perpetual Care. I brought a tear to my eye. Thank you for your tender mercy. I've read about Phoebe Prince. I work in a school, so I took that one to heart. Bullying is becoming a serious problem in schools across the country.

And to die alone, and to have no one care enough to inquire, what a bleak and undeserved ending to life. Thank you for you tribute to them both.

And "It's from Hunger"-thank you again. You made me laugh, and I needed that.

[AuntShecky]

For this next number, we're going to change the tempo a little bit. Arguably this would fit into the "Your Poems Inspired by Music" thread, but instead it's going into the "Anti -poems" thread. So with no further intro, here's a little ditty we like to call

Variation on a Theme by Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown

At some early point
someone unknown
injected vaulting dreams
into my head
and never came back
to spring them.

Into an infinite sky
the notions jumped.
They look on lives
of their own, expecting
that each leaping launch
would land true --

in a parallel
universe, perhaps.
In this one my feet
remain too big,
my balance inept,
my coordination, clumsy.

On graceful toes
an aspiration danced
with the thought that
whenever I entered a room
every head would turn–
and they do! (The other way.)

Another idea had the effrontery
to believe that tiny scrawls
and scratches would elevate
me to a perch so high
that I’d no longer have to wail
the blues or wait for change.

Now overripe and cowering
in the corner and weeping
into their tepid tea, the failures
gum the stale crust of delusion,
while their bones crack jokes and
their once-golden manes turn gray.

But –“Wait! There’s still time!”
one could say. “You ain’t dead
yet, and where’s there’s life,
there’s . . .” Dozens of et ceteras
overflow off the twelve-bar charts.
“Someday my luck will change.”

On the other hand, the future–
both near and far– finds its feet
stuck in irrelevance. My mind
turns back instead of ahead,
especially when it knows
that “someday” is the saddest
word in the world when
at this late point I’m running
out of somedays.

[Hawkman]

Now overripe and cowering
in the corner and weeping
into their tepid tea, the failures
gum the stale crust of delusion,
while their bones crack jokes and
their once-golden manes turn gray.

Says it all really...

Seriously though, this is a cracking read and very entertaining. Thanks Auntie.

PS Last stanza l2 "finds it feet" shouldn't that be "its"?

Live and be well. H

[PrinceMyshkin]

Splendid, up to and most certainly including that last, sad stanza.

[AuntShecky]

PS Last stanza l2 "finds it feet" shouldn't that be "its"?

H

Yep! Thank you very much for catching it for me.

[AuntShecky]

At the root of the vibrant topics currently growing throughout the mainstream media and the blogosphere, one critical question dominates: why do governments, corporations, institutions, and individuals seem unable to make timely and effective decisions? Could the cause of this apparent indecisiveness, as well as the pervasive “lack of commitment,” stem from the idea of permanence, the fear that we're forever stuck with the choices we make? Or is it a possibility even more frightening – that one option is as good as another, or, even worse, that in the grand scheme of things, a specific, individual choice really doesn't matter a whit.

In one of his last monologues, the comedian George Carlin (1937-2008) observed that Americans are duped into believing that they are bestowed with a bottomless supply of multiple choices, divergent options for consumer products such as soda, dog food, cars, ad infinitum, while systematically and covertly denied access to the types of decisions that really matter, the choices that truly affect our daily lives.

A frequently anthologized and misunderstood poem, “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost (1874-1963 ) pokes fun at a man who tends to agonize over minor decisions that ultimately turn out to be more-or-less meaningless. A footnote appearing in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, quotes a critic stating that Frost “did not approve of romantic ‘sighing over what may have been.’ ” Some readers inadvertently overlook the subtle irony in the poem’s concluding couplet: taking the “road less traveled by” doesn't really make all that much difference.

Another poet, Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966) used the line, “In dreams begin responsibilities” as the title for one of his poetry collections as well as for a brilliant short story. Nevertheless a major theme of his work is “the contradiction in every act.” A poem from Schwartz’s final collection, Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge, covers similar ground as Carlin’s much-later monologue. In “True-Blue American,” a boy is confronted with the choice of a chocolate sundae or a banana split; his response is: “Both! I must have both!” It’s difficult to disagree with the Norton editor’s assessment that the poem represents the “metaphysical casualness” marked by a certain indifference typical of the American character. The kid’s plunge into satisfying his confectionary preferences all at once– a gleeful greediness, perhaps– is only a symptom of a larger dysfunction: the inability to bother oneself with the difficulty of making a choice. Hence, as the Norton folks point out, the poem presents a “comic rejection” of the weighty thought processes of --as the poem’s speaker tells us, a “Kierkegaard and many another European.” A line from this astutely-observed poem was stolen for the title of the following “anti-poem” which you could call truthfully “derivative” or kindly, “a post-modern mash-up.”

Rejecting Selection

At Jutland’s gloomy tip, as Arctic winds
dipped down to mock a futile wish for sun,
it wasn't easy for the thinker to announce:
“Not to decide is to decide.”

A tug o’ war of “Either” equally matched
with an “Or” can really rip a soul in two–
half banished to a Limbo off the map;
half to a wishy-washy Switzerland.

While clinging to the comfort of a fence,
why force a guy to make a choice he dreads?
(The right side’s just as likely to be left.)
Sore and battered, he’s loath to take a leap

Where logic fails.

Some choice he has!

Damned both ways, or pegged a namby-
pamby in-between, discomposed to make up
his mind: to shirk – or not to shirk,
another question, a whole ‘nother choice!

A neutral coin won't let him off the hook;
it flips without a cash-back warranty;
can't count on Fate or things unseen for help
to guide the falling dice to roll his way.

The universe has better things to do,
although –believe me - I can sympathize
when forces outside our control deny
desire, answering only nothing but "nyet.”

So go ahead and pick the team you like.
The shirt may feel as if it’s thick with hair.
Just tell yourself the jersey’s made of silk
that’s fashioned from defiance or a joke.

Now take the stamp of the inevitable
in hopeless passes at a football missed
by Sparky’s mild and melon-headed boy.
He (as well as you and I) in spirit share

the same contented calm as Sisyphus
and his uphill stare at the pesky rock,
as, with gravity in doomed embrace, it rolls
back down, each glorious and stinking time.


---
Links:
George Carlin (A reference to the cited monologue appears in this interview in the answer to question #5)
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page3...e=10bqs/carlin

Contains an interpretation of "The Road Not Taken":
http://www.eiu.edu/~ipaweb/pipa/volume3/kilgore.htm

"True-Blue American" by Delmore Schwartz
http://poetryoutloud.org/poems/poem.html?id=171352

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus (1913-1960)
http://dbanach.com/sisyphus.htm

[PrinceMyshkin]

WHAT!? Did you challenge yourself before writing this to outshine even your most brilliant recent poems? You've been showing wit & or comedy to be the equal of even the most dour philosophical questions.

This is an

a
ma
zing

poem!

[AuntShecky]

During the warmer seasons here in North America, I spend many an evening watching a televised Major League Baseball game. Lately, I've noticed something startling when the camera pans the crowd in the stands: generally speaking, the primary focus of the audience isn't the game. While some fans divert their attention toward cell phones and other portable electronic devices, the real distraction/attraction for most is food. We're no longer talking hot “peanuts and Cracker Jacks,” Folks. Beyond the customary comestibles of hot dogs, pizza, chicken wings, and ice cream, modern ballparks offer a vast variety of complete, Styrofoam-encased meals delivered right in the stands, in addition to the full-service restaurants within the stadium itself. And it’s not just sports venues or other spectator events. These days America apparently has a new favorite recreational activity. Hence the following serving of verse about the Curse of the Middle Class which we like to call

American Pastime

It’s strange, this compulsion
that must be forever fed -- not a hunger
per se, but like the Poor,
it’s always here.

As armies and reptiles travel on their bellies,
so do we keep our vehicles well-stocked,
to tide us through emergencies or the inevitable
red light delay. We don't leave home without it.

The road we venture down is an endless esophagus,
while we keep one eye peeled for a place to stop--
for a bite to slake the appetite of dreams,
perchance to sample the local fare.

At picnic tables flanking the pavement,
or in parks, on benches, on beaches,
every place you look people may be drinking
or now and then smoking but mostly
gnawing and chewing and swallowing and gulping
and scarfing and devouring, chowing down,

pigging out on salty things and sweet
things and crispy things and greasy things
and saucy things and crunchy things and
drippy, messy, sticky things, all designed
for good looks and what experts mysteriously
call “mouthfeel,” always concocted to be
craved but never meant to satisfy.

At flashy shows of fiery music, or classy
venues for virtuoso strings, the star
is the intermission or interval, the time
at last for refreshments, the obbligato
snack: fast food or slow food or crowd-
pleasing moderato middle food,

not to mention tonight’s special,
that long-awaited occasion,
when the sparkling night spreads out
its velvet tablecloth across the sky,
as we, with silken apparel and jewels,

prepare ourselves for a fine
dining experience, more sacred
than the post-service Sunday brunch,
elevating our everyday activity,

which we do every day, every morning,
every evening, and especially
in between, spending every spare
minute eating and eating and eating,
always and everywhere eating

and eating.

[Hawkman]

Hi Auntie,

This latest offering of yours is not only wickedly funny but also a positively horrific expose of Western profligacy and overindulgence. One may only hope that the truly hungry never get to read it!

Best, H

[dafydd manton]

It’s From Hunger

For too long I’ve been losing weight,
undernourished in this venue.
Lately I’ve begun to hate
these stale items on the menu.

Don’t order in that rich paté
or a burger with the works,
washed down with chai or a large latte.
My appetite’s for props and perks.

Spicy food? Don’t want to try it,
nor condiments on hors d’oeuvre trays.
I’m starving for a esteem-y diet
full of compliments and fatty praise.

No need to book a pricey table
at a chi-chi place to sup.
Ply me with sweet-talk, or if unable-
lie. Try whipping something up.

So if you want to know my dining credo,
remember this, my fine amigo:
feed my ego.

Live it! Love it! Puts me in mind of Betjeman, or possibly Dylan Thomas.