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601. "This verse says much too little in way too many words.
Give the reader just the gist by reducing it by at least two-thirds."
Those were my teacher's comments as she handed me back my poem,
and as I was walking dejectedly back to my home,
I ripped my masterpiece to pieces ─ and flung my failing words at the birds.
602. My poetry teacher said, "If it's greatness you want to achieve
you shouldn’t be afraid sometimes to subtly deceive.
Because if you only poetize about the expected,
you’ll soon find yourself totally neglected.
So dare to include what may be a little hard to believe.
603. This topic is way too heavy for light verse ─
two, young guys hijacking an occupied hearse ─
then, racing around town ─
with both effing tops down!
Can you think of a teenage prank that was ever any worse?
604. When my dog and I go on a walk, he thinks he can go anywhere ─
on someone's driveway, their doormat, or against their patio chair.
And when I say, "No, no! Whatcha doing!?"
he gives me this look like, "Do you know with whom you're screwing?"
You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out who the boss is here.
605. What we have to drink for dinner doesn't really matter ─
everything goes pretty well with pu pu platter.
So yes ─ that sweet, yellow wine
should go with this pu pu just fine ─
and it shouldn't be too taxing on my weak, overactive bladder.
606. Do you write the number 8 with two circles or with a squiggly line?
Oh, so you had to try it, before you could answer that question of mine!
Notice how we habitually do things without thinking.
Perhaps that's why this world is so stinking
full of people who do what's evil, while believing that what they do is actually benign.
607. It's not funny anymore ─
that you don't want to be my honey anymore ─
that it's never gonna be sunny anymore.
No, it's not funny anymore ─
that you're never gonna kiss and hug me anymore ─
that ...
Oh for Christ sake, stop it already!
608. Sorry, I know! That was over the top.
Sometimes I just don't know when to stop.
I shoulda done as Frost did,
who would've immediately tossed it,
had he written a poem so obviously a flop.
609. On a walk, my dog always knows when I'm freezing.
On a walk, my dog always knows when I have to pee.
That's why when I say, "Come on boy, we gotta hurry,"
he proceeds to go about his business ─ even more ploddingly.
610. Let bygones be bygones, my Dear.
And let's finish the last of this beer.
And while the old, white moon gapes,
let's traipse, like two wild apes,
haply into a phosphorous New Year.
611. We were only Magi from the East,
who, at the time, knew nothing about a Christmas feast.
A luminous star sent us looking for a new king,
but all we found was this scrawny looking thing,
who didn't look like a king in the least.
612. I once heard a myth about an uncle in Greece,
whose weenie size would daily increase,
so that after a while, when it unfurled,
it would go all the way round the world,
and end up in the lap of his niece.
613. I'm so bitchen, I'm so the best.
I got a leg up on all the rest.
That's what my dog thinks of himself, I'm sure he does.
And I agree that he's the best there ever was ─
cuz if I didn't ─ he'd be so goddamned depressed.
614. Only two o'clock ─ still an hour till it's three.
Time's passing slower than eternity.
Now it's four, and as anyone can see ─
I'm having trouble with this end-of-life monotony.
How much longer till it's five o'clock ─
and I can put my head upon the chopping block?
615. When I got back to writing the poem, the main character was gone.
I thought, “Holy shit! What the hell is going on!
How can a lead character just disappear?
Especially when the end of the poem was so near?
And now ─ how the hell am I gonna write the denouement?”
616. On a dog walk, soon as my dog's taken his dump and a piss,
I'm always in a state of minor heavenly bliss.
It may seem silly to say,
but with this requisite doggy stuff outta the way ─
there won't be another doggy achievement today
any greater than this.
617. If not for this fence, there'd be no shade,
and we'd be burning up watching this parade
of hellhounds and lizards ─
and three-headed wizards ─
and griffins with gross gizzards ─
making the little kiddies afraid.
618. I couldn't see her forest for her trees.
I couldn't see her knickers for her knees.
I couldn't see the lightening of her thunder,
No! Nothing of her top and nothing of her under ─
though I repeatedly asked her to show it to me ─ please!
619. I once knew a child of the devil,
who in her father’s fame did revel.
And boy, did she ever get mad
if anyone said anything bad about her dad.
Then, she'd take her rage at them ─ to the very next level.
620. Now that I’m old, I got a new perspective
on that age-old biblical directive ─
to sell all you got and give it to the poor.
I don’t really see anybody doing that anymore.
But then again, was it ever a command? ─ or only an elective?
621. She said, "Haven't I seen you somewhere?"
I said, "I don't think so. I've never been there."
She said, "No, I'm sure. I've seen you somewhere."
I said, "I swear. I've never even been there."
She sighed, "Okay, well them ─ fine!
That's the last time I try to use this for a pick-up line."
622. It's a perfect day for bananafish.*
But I know ─ it's not your favorite dish.
So, I can make you a plate
of deepfried orangeprimate,
and an appleoyster salad if you wish.
* Play on J.D Salinger story title
623. Remember that time
we found a dime
and bought two ice cream cones at Thrifty?
That may very well be
the only time that you and me
shared anything fifty-fifty.
624. The birch trees that lined the Tennessee river
in the crispness of the morning air did shiver,
as on a dank, muddy bank,
an old man smoked his pipe and drank,
waiting for a big-ass bass
to bite his bait of bacon and chicken liver.
625. "Emma Blue? Emma Blue?"
"Not a bit. Are you?"
626. Me and the team I was on,
managed to cross the Rubicon.
Then from midnight till dawn,
we continued to march on and on
till we were able to locate the nearest unisex john.
627. I coulda written that song, “Purple Rain.”
It didn’t take that big of a brain.
And I coulda written that song “Hotel California.”
But girl ─ I do wanna warn ya!
I’ve always been considered at least halfway insane.
628. I wrote an ode to the moon
and a paean to the sun,
even though I knew they'd be pissed on
by nearly everyone.
629. When you gave me the middle finger,
the effects of it did surely linger,
not only because
I didn’t know whose finger it was,
but also because
I don’t know what having to miss a middle finger like that does.
630. On the bed on which she slept,
a gargantuan spider crept
into her mind, into her dream,
and as she voiced a ghastly scream,
from an overhanging beam,
an even more gargantuan spider leapt.
631. No one but I knows this.
I have to take a super urgent piss.
Good, here’s some brush and a clump of trees.
Here’s to hoping that no one sees.
Pop, pop, fiz, fiz, oh what a relief this is.
632. By and large,
I was the long-time lover of Marge.
She had plenty of other lovers
who spent time with her under the covers,
but only I ─ got to do it free of charge.
633. Alli was a pint-size, yellow frog
perhaps the prettiest frog in all the bog,
with an orange-marmalade belly,
and four, webbed feet like blueberry jelly,
and two, bulbous eyes ─ the color of eggnog.
634. When God had the land vomit us out,
I said, "What the hell is this all about?"
If He'd wanted us to go,
couldn't He just have said so?
Jesus Christ! For crying out loud!
635. The older I get, the more I forget my colors.
Is this paint amber, burnt ochre, or clay?
Would it were the same with all of my dolors,
but age has washed none of my dolors away.
636. Rub a dub dub ─
mom and baby playing in the tub,
with one plastic snail, and four lilac guppies,
and three spanking new spotted seal puppies,
and two seahorsies: one named Gitty, and the other one Yup.
637 If, after taking that shit,
you still remember the gist of it,
write it down as a story,
even though it may be a little bit gory,
and you may win the prized Pulitzer prize with it.
638. She said, "You taste so old.”
I said, “Try to avoid the mold.
There are parts of me
the daylight shouldn’t see,
and the darkness neither, truth be told.”
639. Said the turtle, "I'll be damned if I stick my neck out."
Said the giraffe, "That's easy for you to say.
For you, it's a choice ─ no doubt,
but for me, it’s just always this way."
640. I’ve gone over to the side of YHWH.
Ever since the day of Adam’s fall,
mankind has grown more rotten, more evil.
So I say ─ let’s just go and kill ‘em all.
641. I'm not a defeatist.
I think life is the sweetest ─
as long as I always manage to win.
And if I were to lose?
I'd head straight for the booze,
and get ready for my new sweetest life to begin.
642. If I’d realized he was about to lose his fight,
I woulda held on to him a little longer with all of my might.
As the vet administered the lethal dose,
and I saw his sweet eyes slowly close,
I stroked his head and wished him an eternal good night.
643. This year's not been of the best.
God's being a real pest.
He made the dog die,
and the wife say goodbye,
and then He joked it was all done in jest.
644. They flee from me, that sometime did me seek,*
those unborn poems that used to visit when I was on my winning streak.
But now that they realize my poetic brain's gone dry,
they no longer see any reason to stop by,
knowing full well I've long since passed my erstwhile word-smithing peak.
* Play on a poem by Thomas Wyatt.
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