Humor

  At the Supper Table of a Progressive They understood riots and death and what's more, "Adore them all really," and down to the core, So dropping my napkin to grant them the same, I upset their...

  Feeding Time Chickens feed on chicken feed. Birds on birdseed, yes-indeed! Cattle feed on cattle feed, Twitters feed on Twitter feed. People feed on many things, Avocados, onion rings, Water...

  There’s no age bar on titivating hair, Apart from putting rouge on wrinkled cheek. A Speaker has the right to looking fair, And prune her brunette hair once in a week. Pandemics come and go,...

  The Church is Locked on Easter Day a rondeau The Church is locked on Easter Day Despite the stone being rolled away. The Christ awakes to greet the poor But they cannot get through the door To go...

Weave a circle round him thrice, __And close your eyes with holy dread, __For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. —Coleridge, “Kubla Khan” Sam Coleridge smoked opium. Ho...

  July 4, 2020 A monument falls Rioters have no remorse What happened this fourth?     Summer 2020 Sunny days are here! The beach is ideal and near. It’s Fall...

  London’s Docklands, Pre-Gentrification from a sonnet by Wordsworth Earth has not anything to show more foul Unless it be the same neath fog and rain; But no, for like Rasputin’s reechy...

  Losing It He staggered round his living room in stunning disbelief As for the very umpteenth time, he’d gone and lost his teeth. He cried, “They’re in here somewhere, I must search and...

  A Cut Above Why shouldn’t Nancy break a lockdown rule To bless us with her chestnut-tress finesse? As Speaker of the House she’d look a ghoul If cameras focused on an un-coiffed...

    There’s lots of riots in the street or so I’ve heard from someone’s tweet; they’re pulling out all of the stops, those young people who fight the cops; I see the photos in...

  I am a cardboard cutout. I sit here in the stands. I do not think. I do not blink. I do not clap my hands. You are a cardboard cutout. You sit there next to me. You do not cheer. You have...

  'I Shall A Mighty Hunter Be!' “I shall a mighty hunter be, The King of Kills, by God’s decree! Savannahs always guarantee a vantage camouflaging me. I’ll lie in wait with sharpened...

  The Angels’ Share Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God’s ways to man. — A.E. Housman When whisky’s aged in...

  Editing with the OED for Rita Bornstein __Like a mental abattoir, the OED, With brumous exactitude, looms over me As my blue pen prunes my cachaemic prose, Decorticating glut in orderly...

  Abracadabra The written word is magical And not just something clerical. You scratch some marks into the sand; I see the marks and understand What you are thinking in your head Without a single...

  My marriage failed (they always do.) Emotionally unequipped To work things out without a script, We didn’t try to talk it through. What do I pay that therapist for? You can’t see what...

  When the wokest of folk virtually convoke In a year of elections and riots and fear, Uncle Joe from the basement the Nanny will stoke. He’ll invoke Ms. Kamala as newscasts evoke, “She’s a...

  Madcapfesto We’ll unlock prison gates and let the inmates saunter out. We’ll tear down wall and rule; we’ll sponsor every lug and lout. We’ll overlook drug smuggling and the trafficking of...

by Joseph S. Salemi The poetic effusions of some people are so incompetent that they cross the line into unexpected humor, and thereby become valuable. Such is the case with the work of William Topaz...

  Hero of Her Heart On February 9, 2007 Sgt. James J. Regan of the 3rd Battalion 75th U.S. Ranger Regiment was killed on active service in Iraq. Some time after the funeral, Sgt. Regan's fiancee Mary...

All poems by Bruce Dale Wise The Prisoners in Manacles by Lu “Reed ABCs” Wei The prisoners in manacles in western China were just on a day out, stated the Chinese ambassador. The picture shows the...

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, by Joseph Lange (1783? / 1789?); as viewed by a Philistine Consider Lange’s well-known portrait Of his in-law, a composer: It’s good, we see, but it requires A scrutiny...

  Rueing Tattoos When young she was drawn to that skin-art taboo of embellishing flesh with a tattoo or two. Now time’s marching on and gravity’s struck, her sweet chickadee is akin to a...

Golden Gloves My father fought in Golden Gloves. Back then The ring was where you slugged your way to hopes. It was no place for fey, aesthetic men— There’s no nuance on canvas, or the ropes. I...

  How Monkeys Came to Be adapted from a Palestinian folktale Monkeys and people once were one. For monkeys had from Adam come. As Adam's sons in every way, Those monkeys looked like us today. Yet...

  The Gardener at War Throughout our lives we hustle and we slave __To turn our gardens into magic places __Where beauty at its pinnacle erases Our darkest intimations of the grave; But what mundane...

  With Sorrow Do I Leave It is with sadness that I write to tell you that I am resigning from The New York Times. ---Bari Weiss, opinion writer, 13 July 2020 With sorrow do I leave The New York...

  Lockdown Leisure with apologies to W.H. Davies In lockdown life, should I but dare To take more time to stand and stare?--- More time to stand six feet away And gaze upon our world...

Your Smart Device a rondeau Your smart device was strange and new; It learned your voice and habits too; It played the songs you liked to hear; It answered your requests with cheer, And spat out facts...

  Editor’s Note: This poem was originally found in The Pebbles and Shells: A Book of Verses ,1909, edited by Donald Fraser. Another version was published in The Good Humor Book, by Robert Rango,...