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51. I burned through a small fortune in the casino with Jack.
How much? Of that I didn’t really keep track.
But at the casino, I did find me a queen,
who gave me a really good time in between
losing my ass and the shirt off my back.
52. Trying to teach my dog a new trick hasn’t proven to be prudent.
Perhaps, I’m just too lousy of a teacher, or he’s too lousy of a student.
I can show him a thousand times how to sit —
he just doesn’t want any part of it.
And the more I insist, the more he becomes downright impúdent.
53. On a trip North with my best friend Alice,
I fulfilled her wish to go see the Aurora Borealis.
And the phenomenon so completely blew her away,
that out of the blue, she reciprocally did say,
“For showing me this — when we get home tonight,
I’m gonna show you how Debbie did Dallas.”
54. Skip to my Lou, my darling,
Give my Lou a good view, my darling.
Let my Lou see
just how precious you can be,
and what you wouldn’t do for old Lou for a farthing.
55. I said, “If you really did adore me,
you’d tumble for me.”
She said, “Well, I can’t today,
cuz I just tumbled for Jay,
and that left me with a really sore knee.
56. Would it be okay if later today
I brought Bixby by to play
with Boris and Doris
and Horace and Morris
and Eddie and Ollie and Ray?
57. I was sitting on the dock of the bay listening to a song,
when Otis Redding happened to come walking along.
He said, “You watching the ships roll in?”
I said, “Yeah, and then watching ‘em roll away again.”
He said, “Some folks really seem to dig that shit ─ but I think it’s pretty ho-hum.”
58. My mother ─ for rhyme’s sake let’s call her Dot ─
always gagged at any mention of that slimy word “sssnot.”
Whenever any one of us kids spoke
about digging for a green, wet one, she’d just about choke,
and begged us to stop ─ which of course, we immediately did not.
59. I won a poetry prize to go visit the lake isle of Innisfree.
But I didn’t wanna go, cuz there’s nothing there I particularly wanna see.
I hear there’s just a clay-and-wattles cabin
with a bunch a bees a-blabbin’
and nine rows of beans, and that doesn’t really interest me.
60. “Today, we again failed to reproduce,”
said the gander to the goose.
“If we wanna keep up with the drake and the duck,
we gotta do more than depend just on luck.
We gotta actually let something hang loose.”
61. You know, I was never that impressed
by the manner in which that puffed-up emperor dressed.
So I guess you can suppose,
that when he started traipsing around without any clothes,
that’s when I actually liked him the best.
62. It’s difficult to place
where I last left my face.
Did I leave it in your lap
after taking that quick nap?
Or did I leave it in your narrow crawlspace?
63. No, I can’t say I ever knew
the one who flew over the cuckoo’s nest, did you?
And it’s probably all for the best,
cuz, if we’d known him before his arrest,
he might’ve gotten us to fly over the cuckoo’s nest, too.
64. “Et tu, Brute?”
“Who me? No fucking way!
This is yon Cassius’ gig.
I said I didn’t wanna any part of it, you dig?
Now please ─ kindly turn your head ─ the other way.”
65. Sometimes when my dog is sleeping next to my chair,
he can be the world champ at defiling the air.
At times his toots are so lethal
that I fear that his doggy diesel
might cause an explosion ─ right then and there.
66. When a lady in red
crept into my head ─
and crawled into my bed ─
and I try to lay down beside her ─ she said,
“Get away! ─ You’re supposed to be happily wed!”
67. Among the seventh-grade girls, the rumor got really loud
that Harry Long was truly well-endowed.
But then Clarissa confessed —
she’d seen it, and she wasn’t all that impressed,
although she wasn’t believed by any other girl in the crowd.
68. A cup, a saucer, and a spoon
were crazily dancing to a Disney Land tune,
till their itty-bitty gray matter
got so dizzy, they all went splatter,
falling, head-first, down the stairs to their ruin.
69. I find it so effervescent
to be able to freely explore your fertile crescent.
I know my requests are incessant —
I’m such a total adolescent.
But thanks for being so acquiescent.
70. When I heard that the first would be last,*
I was truly and completely aghast.
So, I slammed on my brake
and let those behind me overtake
my future as I slipped into their past.
* From Matthew 20:16 New International Version
71. Today,
even the hills seem blue.
Unhappiness is
just happiness
being torn to shreds by you.
72. I once knew this guy named Lou Lenard.
He was not only a great butcher, but also a great bard.
Whenever he slit open a sow —
I can still hear it now — him singing,
“Mine eyes have seen the coming of the gory of the lard.” *
* Play on “Mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the lord.”
73. On our block, the biggest mother fletcher
was this bully of a girl named Bonnie Etcher.
But we fixed her once and for all
by throwing her a big, red ball
and then telling the pit bull to go fetch her.
74. Shit, fuck, damn!
There’s green slime on my fried eggs and spam!
Call me confused,
but I’m not at all amused!
I thought this shit only happened with fried eggs and ham.
75. Porno limericks/verses
a. I'm always amazed at how well porn sells,
with those gyrating bodies and their sex toys and gels.
And all that crooning and crowing
and the gooey end product showing!
I'm just so happy porn comes without smells.
b. There are some scenes I'd rather not see
when I’m at home watching my pornography.
Do you have that too? ─
that some scenes just make you go, “Ew!”
Or are you an aficionado of pornographic potpourri.
76. During the Jurassic period, every once and a while,
you coulda seen a sated group of dinosaurs smile.
But that usually happened only
after they'd been munching on something fleshy and bony
and had been lying around picking their teeth for a while.
77. When I reminded her that the Bible does tell
to love not only yourself, but your neighbor as well,
she said, "But Mister Tabor,
you're not my neighbor,
so, you can kindly go to hell!"
78. When you left me, my sorrow was way too big.
It was bigger than any whole pig.
It was bigger than what God should've allowed —
bigger than the darkest thundercloud.
But today? — I no longer really give a fig.
79. Like Napoleon, I was born.
He led the French army ─ I made sure the sheep got shorn.
And while I was covered deeply in sheep's doo,
he met his waterloo.
And when on St. Helena he died,
none of my sheep cried."
80. There's a Mrs. who misses you.
It's not the Mrs. who kisses you.
And you're unaware —
or likely — don't even care —
that the Mrs. who's missing you
would do anything again to be kissing you.
81. Here we are, finally at our loose ends,
with no more possibility for amends.
Our love's edges just got too frayed
for anyone to be able to come to our aide ─
no elf or fairy ─ who sews up, patches, or mends.
82. Strolling by a sunny stretch of shoreline,
I saw a great white shark eat a friend of mine.
I yelled, "Hey Mister shark!
This is supposed to be a private park!
Who invited you here to come dine?"
83. My favorite mode of transportation
is to walk to the Brussels train station,
buy some gum, get on a train,
then ride all the way from Belgium to Spain,
just because I like that chew-choo sensation.
84. I heard that it was a guy from Pamplona
who had an affair with that Florentine called Mona.
Or was she from Pisa,
and her name was really Lisa?
Ah, my mind’s all a blur from drinking too much Corona.
85. I said to the laymen,
“God’s dead. Can I get an amen?”
They exclaimed, “God’s not dead!
How’d you get that in your head?
We just saw Him julienne ten thousand men
for worshipping idols behind Ezra pig pen.”
86. When the old saints came marching in, *
on their wrinkled faces, I could detect a sly, little grin.
In the clinic, each one had been handed a little bag a’
little blue pills commonly known as Viagra,
that they were promised would make dem bones rise again.
* Play on the title of the old spiritual "When the saints go marching in"
87. The way that scene closes
invites a scrutinous diagnosis.
For example, that fuzzy face ─
it appears in more than one place ─
with subtly different eyes and subtly different noses.
88. My dog is more stubborn than a paddock of mules.
He runs around the house and breaks every one of my rules.
But if I didn't just let him,
it would greatly upset him,
and the house would resound with his whines and his pules.
89. Those around me think I'm disgusting
because all my limbs’ hinges are rusting.
And they consider me totally freaky
because all my entrances and exists are leaky,
and my toenails are covered in a brittle, yellow crusting.
90. As I watch you sleeping there,
with seventy years of hard living etched into your silvery-gray hair,
I feel my love for you as deeply and as much
as I did that night when you first let me touch
your exquisite beauty ─ here ─ there ─ and everywhere.
91. The first time you kissed me, it was such a shock,
I literally saw time stop on the old kitchen clock.
But before you take it as over-the-top flattery,
let me say, it turned out to be just a dead battery,
and once replaced, time started again with the same old tick-tock.
92. Last night, I heard voices in the back of my mind,
the voices of people you just known aren't kind.
I got so scared, I hid in the closet and prayed to be spared.
And then I heard someone declare, "I don't think he's here ─
his filthy kind are always the hardest to find."
93. I dreamed I was drinking with Toulouse-Lautrec.
We were downing glass after glass of orange triple sec.
And quite drunk, he told me something that shocked me so.
He said he'd eaten the ear of Vincent van Gogh!
And then I woke up — with a sunflower pillow case wrung around my neck.
94. In an art class about Johannes Vermeer,
the professor asked a question that I found a little bit queer.
He said, "If you'd been that girl,
would you have let him paint you with that pearl?"
I said, "Only if he had held me very, very dear."
95. I tried to reason with the Lady of Shalott,
"Be content! Don't be so distraught!
You may be jealous of the world of Lancelot and Guinevere —
but let me tell you what’s about to happen there —
they're about to lose everything they've got."
96. There are more nos then yeses
when my wife goes shopping for new dresses.
Each dress has to fit her just so
that only her best features show.
And the rest she leaves up to wild-ass guesses.
97. We kissed in Act 1, Scene 4,
and then I didn't get to see her anymore.
The dramatist must’ve plum forgot to write
what she and I were supposed to be doing in the play that night,
which, with this dramatist, has happened plenty of times before.
98. When I die, my family wouldn't dare bury me in a grave.
They know without a doubt I'd only misbehave.
I'd party with the germs
and have sleepovers with the worms
and give the bacteria all that they crave.
99. This morning, the clouds looked orange and lavender gray.
Scientists say it's pollution makes them look that way.
Still, some people think it's real pretty to see
and aren't aware of the possibility
that this beauty might kill them some day.
100. That kid at eleven before his first kiss
is the kid that I really, really miss.
Every kid thereafter
was more tears than laughter,
molding the world-weary cynic that this old man now is.
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Comments, suggestions, or questions? Please email Rio Jansen at rio_jansen@hotmail.com