Got Marxism?
“Are you a Marxist?” he asked
Well
Yes and know
I am
More of a Groucho Marxist
Than a Karl Marxist
This funny little poem is a bit Zen in that turns a serious question into a playful and more expansive answer — perhaps answering the question, perhaps razing more questions.
In the dark
Weight fore it
There it is
That singular smile
Making light
Of everything
Taking a twinkle
Over
Awe the whirled
As never
Settling for number one
Even as wading for it
On and on
As inevitable
As unstoppable
Groan
Only doing what comes naturally
Going
That second smile
On that throne
Laughing
In efface of death
This poem is autobiographical, reflecting on my persistent inability to be serious while simultaneously and chronically dealing with serious issues. While my joking may be self-deprecatory, I specialize in deflating and parodying the powerful, dangerously powerful, if that’s not redundant. For me, the lightness that characterizes the best of life comes face to face with the all-to-often brutality and injustice that intersects, often vivisects, our lives. This laughing in efface of death is my most treasured place to be, in the role of jester, for which I am willing to die, that is, die laughing.
Waiving his red pen
He made his mute point
That spoken word is knot poetry
Like meting
Meter and anti-meter
And the invariable deconstruction of awe
As if
Employing free
Versus
The hire mind
For awe
That its worth
Save in alliteral weigh
Abut
Alas
Bringing too bare
Undisciplined obscenities uddering
As opposed to the ladder
As any won
May eye
Make this suggestive
Perhaps you’s
An unpronounceable cymbal farmerly no’in as prints
Pulling weeds
Of biblical pro portion
Fore whatever
It maybe worth
There is know space
Sandwiched
Between poetry and knot poetry
Between amateurs and prose
Knot that which isn’t
Nor which is
The wurst
I ever metaphor
Whatever
Call me
I am
An outspoken unspoken word artist
Unspellbound in my crappy weighs
And should upon
In the coming daze
Sow called poets anon meet
As shepherds to sheep affix
Due the write thing
Feel free
To shut the flock up
This poem was inspired by a blog article that a friend shared, entitled, “Spoken Word Is Not Poetry.” My immediate response was simple: “I find it helpful to see everything as poetry.” Of course, this is the gloriously useless mode of perception I aspire to use awe the time. However, this poem represents a more detailed critique of the assertion that spoken word is not poetry. The author of this article pined that many readers at open mics are not trained poets and typically use free verse or prose poetry. I must confess: I am an untrained poet, except by my tutelage under various muses. Further, the often quick use of vulgarities offended the author’s parently higher sensibilities. I strongly suspect that the work of any poet or poets is never complete as truth in word, as opposed to doing the deed in life, because life is F’ing ineffable. Claiming that spoken word is performance art, which it is, seemed to be a means to taint spoken word artists as something other than poets. I certainly don’t mind being seen as more than a poet! I wonder if the author would consider a novelist not a novelist if they read their work aloud — that would be a novel idea! I related to the author’s point that an important part of poetry is the relationship of the reader to the written word without being nailed down by a verbal representation (or layering upon it performance art). Most of my poems are best read silently, to allow for the multiple interpretations and meanings to brew within the reader; this process is at the heart of my poetry. I find it difficult to read many of my poems out loud because I must pick one way to read the poem which inevitably shortchanges the beauty of dancing multiple meanings. I must admit that when it comes to my poetry I am conveniently an anarchist, formally rejecting socially constructed boundaries of form. I do not doubt that the many fine forms of poetry developed over centuries are worthy of attention. Nonetheless, I consider deflating pretensions as fodder for my poetic vocations. If this itself seems pretentious, please feel free to take a meta view of my sow-called poems as self-parody. At the end of my daze, I want parity for awe.
Logos used
Too mean
Know ledge
Like that age owed ad vice
Would you jump off a bridge
If every won ails did
As in sayin’
Bye your good will
As money oozes from the non-prophet, health care (sic) system
The sores of philandering philanthropy
Well, come to PR medica
An unholy owned subsidiary
Of Tourette’s Industries
You will swear
Buy them
Weather you want to or not
Their marketing deportment is
As good as goaled
As black as poets inc
Greasing their wills
Stuck with irresistible pitch
As verbally contracted
Not worth the pay per
Printed upon
Yet this awe
Will in deed
Make it passable to live
As resistance is feudal
And being
Penned
Is what poets due
Indubitably
Sow branded
As live stock
For tolled
Too get a rise
The Tao jones
Working in our flavor
Over and over and over
Un-till bank rolled
In a dark ally
Buy and buy
Hour justifiable salivation
Attending too in trap meant anon
Agin and agin and agin
Fore the yoke is on-us
Awe the more
Fore the fire brand
Not with standing
In a flesh of genius
Is incensed
As won red scent
Becomes too
Until udderly crying out
In an unherd-of steer
I love the smell
Of nay palm
In the mourning
High noon
And too fly by night
Sullen this, sullen that
Soully worried
How irate
In some won ails size
Butt, its my skin in the game
Lonely hoping
Knot to be found
Within and without
My pants around my knees
As its only
My panties in a bunch
Over
Awe that madders
Poetic license
And corporate patronage
Some body
Has to
Pay the piper
To keep your roost ere plumbed
As upright as it comes
Why cant you
Say “uncle”
You know
Like that rich uncle
Who wants you
To sit on his lap
And tell you
Bed time
Stories
That will mark you for life
Butt kept mysteriously in a family weigh
As long
As in your genes
As in c’est la vie
Or sow, I’ve herd
As if
We are posed to be prod
Of being cattle
Scarred I’ll go
All Gandhi on you as
BE the beef
Awe the wile beating a different conundrum
Refraining that whole eat me thing
The mark of the best (sic)
Or rather sic sic sic’s
Sow fresh and hoary unholy revelations
Indulging vain wishes for dead presidents
And CEOs
Men of letters posterior to autograft
Ass-ever-rate
In playing defense
At my offense
With such propriety, proprietary and property
For my own good, posedly
Their mirror deflection
But, but, but, but, but
Except two a t
And so
I’m bare assed
And without
They’re money
You’re nothing butt
A bum
And the rush
Too be just
THAT
I am not a big fan of branding, whether it is of livestock or in corporate public relations. I was inspired to write this poem because at a regular monthly poetry reading they secured a small amount of funding to pay invited featured poets. 
The source of funding included local community foundations plus the nearly ubiquitous ProMedica, the largest health system within the Toledo region. I have come to call Promedica, “PR Medica,” because of its often over-sized logo and branding in Toledo, aka ProMedica-ville, is nearly omnipresent in venues big and small. I found its intrusion into the local poetry scene offensive, particularly because I am an iconoclastic, anti-commercial poet who specializes in addressing social justice issues. This was a little too close to home for me. I announced before my open mic reading that I did not want to be considered as an invited poet. I suggested that to de-commercialize this reading, sending back the portion payed for by ProMedica, along with a strongly worded letter (might I suggest F and U), would be in order.
This is not the first time that I have unleashed my poetic visions against ProMedica. The first time I devoted a poem to ProMedica was when they sponsored a state-wide poetry contest on the topic of anti-hunger with an honorarium to the winning poet that would befit and maintain the status of starving artist. My unsubmitting, unremitting poem: Speaking With Spoken Sword: Owed To Hungering Fore Anew ProMedica.
ProMedica, if you want to combat hunger, pay all of your employees a living wage. ProMedica, if you want to fulfill your mission and redeem your non-prophet status, devote 0.01% of your revenue toward advocating for universal health care, everybody in, nobody out. Until then, you can bye this poet all you want.
He thought
Too himself
More or less
THAT would tickle God’s whiskers
Which was particularly funny
Since God has no whiskers
Un-less
That is
God is right
Under your knows
This short poem plays with the notion that God is more than we can even imagine. To some, this may launch profuse ponderings of untold wise cracks, offering glimpses into eternal mysteries of the spirit. Too sum, this may forebode cruel jokes of a grumpy owed man shitting up on his throne, offering butt flashes of the highest rank. Either weigh, the joke is, well, on you.
What did the child say when he happened up on three holes in the ground? “Well, well, well.”
He argued
Fore cynicism
Farced to choose between
What’s left
What is right
And he one handily
With won hand tied behind his back
Soundly
Like the slow clap
With the only hope
That he is not contagious
And that joy can be found in abandon
In the grip of whatever he comes up with
This poem continues in my perpetual theme of cynicism versus hope, with a tip of the hat to the post-election ennui experienced by much of the American electorate and non-electorate. Like I have been known to say: cynicism is its own reward. 
This poem awards cynicism with one of my favorite insulting critiques: cynicism is like masturbation, except without the short-term pleasures or long-term benefits. While experiencing the grip of cynicism qualifies as normal, cynicism strikes me as a profoundly maladaptive response to building a long-term, hope-filled relationship with reality. If you argue for cynicism, on whose side are you on? Of course, misery loves company. Incorporate that company in your worldview and you win amputated possibilities and learned helplessness. Cynicism is locked in lamentable necessity and wretched necessities. 
Hope lives in possibility and possibilities ordered by our deepest dreams. Hope accepts the hard work of recognizing that our stymied yearnings are more of a reflection of the depth of our longings than mirror confirmation of our foes’ oafishness. Cynicism is fueled by the easy focus on others’ shortcomings. Hope is fed by the steadfast convergence of dreams and dreamers. It is easy to fall for seasons of cynicism and its many accomplices; I only ask that we keep the spring of hope in the lineup and work to swell the list of usual suspects…
The reason Donald Trump sucks
Is that he is full of himself
And the vacuum created
Can’t help
Butt purse
His lips
Like the Donald, this poem speaks for itself.
Sum wear
Long the weigh
Countless souls
Lost
Their sense of humor
Only too end up
Way to Sirius
Occupying that eternal box
Under the counter
Only willing
To pass it long
To whom sow ever
Claims it for their owin’
And consider it
Awe the more
Than mirror junk
And that unmatched
Like a kid smitten
With another helping
Bringing it awe back
To the whirled of the living
This poem was inspired by a couple of occasions where others had spoken about how they had lost their sense of humor and I thanked them, because I had found it. I find humor nearly everywhere. Life is endlessly intriguing, stubbornly surreal, and surprisingly funny. Many may look at my life and might consider it a perfect storm of their worst scenarios. Nonetheless, I often feel like a kid smitten with that unmatched experience of finding joys in what others consider unwanted junk in the lost and found box. Valuing what others consider trivial or worth avoiding can be vexing at times, yet there is an expansive freedom in not chasing after and competing for the same stuff most everybody else is. Some days I feel as though I am literally living in a different world; yet, I sense that I deeply see our shared reality, replete with pain and suffering, countless contradictions, and despair, just as abounding with joy and serendipities, poetic beauty, and profound hope. I find that humor abounds amidst odd juxtapositions, playful exaggerations, and a rich appreciation for the possible. I often use humor to see past cynicism and fixations on the ugliness in life. Sometimes this may strike overly serious folks as grasping for baubles, but value is largely in the eye of the beholder; and if conventional views snare despair, then it may just be time to discard such views. Humor may not be everything, but humor can be found nearly anywhere. If you have lost your sense of humor, I’ll keep an eye out for it. Trust me, I’ll give it back to you if I find it.
Who dares ax
Why I am
Sow meta for
As the spear it in me
Razes up
Too meat the spirit in you
This poem is an ode to my favorite version of the greeting “namaste:” may the spirit in me rise up to meet the spirit in you. My poetic version plays with the meeting of the spiritual and physical, the spirit and the flesh. How do the sublime and the crude coexist? The short answer is that life is marvelously messy. Daring to question why I am the way I am can be a precarious project. Delving into why the great “I AM” is “I AM” can be downright dangerous. Existence is puzzling; essence more sow. One of my projects in life is to be in touch with my bastard nature, daring “too meat” the spirit in you. The churning of my spirit yearns to kiss the whirled of flesh, and perhaps more. The paradox of “Razes up” speaks to the inextricable cycles of destruction and creation, countless resurrections, risings up from the ashes like a phoenix. 
This is a death-defying game: “the spear it in me.” Still, I like to stir things up. Things that are settled strike me as dead. 
Where there is pretension, expect to be punctuated with vulgarity. Where there is cynicism, expect to be flooded by my delugings of unabashed hope. I will hurl sublime poetry over your ahead, but I won’t pick at your soars. I will lob softballs to hit you out of park, but know one will keep score. The hallowed and the hollowed will mete. There are plenty of weepin’s in this life too be had. How ever, weather I reach hi or lo, behold my arse and all. Think good that the pun is mightier than the sored! What ever this life is, it is the most beautiful thing I ever metaphor. 
Namaste.
Please feel free to check out other spirit-filled, inspiring and life challenging designs:
He was feeling it
In a corny state
The mother of corn starch
In the thick of it
A sweet mother
High on fructose
Full of it
As lots of feed
In feedlots
Of walking meat
But it was my job
To make fun
Of corn
I recently returned from a road trip out to Iowa to visit relatives, some of whom are corn farmers. I couldn’t resist this corny poem, one of two corn poems written on this trip. I wrote over 25 poems on this eight-day trip, setting a new personal record of nine poems in one day, the first day. Riding (and waiting for) the bus offered ample time for writing. The Megabus earned two specific poems and inspired a third poem about corporate incompetence and poor customer service. Quite predictably, cell phone and electronic gadget noise pollution garnered a couple of poems as well. Plus, there are the omnipresent self-indulgent poems about poetry or being a poet. The muse, rather than taking a vacation, is far more liable to hook up with me on vacation, loving open times and spaces to work her magic. A poet is always on duty. I am delighted to have the vocation of poet alongside my other 24/7 jobs, such as running an e-commerce web site and being a blood donor. Fortunately, I can do several jobs in my sleep! Stay tuned for more lodes of crop in coming weeks!
He in choired
So you think people should have sex before marriage?
My straight forward rejoined her:
Hell, I think people should have sex before breakfast!
This short poem is a playful response to the straight-laced attitudes of many religious folks surrounding sexuality. The “in choired” intimates that he is speaking out of a community, most likely a religious community. Ironically, a congregation’s choir is perhaps the most likely part of a congregation to contain gay folks, often condemned by fundamentalist or conservative religionists. In some cases, a congregation’s choir may actually be more gay than happy!
The leading question implies the desired answer and is designed to put the questioned on the defensive. The whimsical answer transcends the intended course of the debate, with an unapologetic celebration of sexuality. The “straight,” “forward,” and “rejoined her” implies a straight male responder — perhaps even myself — who is not backward, perhaps straight but not narrow. Beginning the response with “Hell,” playfully mocks the judgmental implications of hegemonic religiosity. The argumentative nature of judgmental questioning betrays the very tender nature of authentically intimate sexuality. As neither a fan of orthodoxy nor the dominant Catholic version of sexuality, I will not be drawn into the narrow and unwelcoming clutches of evangelistic mass debaters.
In the end, if this poem made you laugh, it has served its purpose.
She threw up her arms in disgust
He said that she might want to stick to finger food
This short, funny poem is a good case study into how my twisted mind works. First, I am not often put off by gruesome whimsy. Whimsy typically wins. Smiles trump frowns. Groans are not necessarily to be avoided.
This poem was spurred by witnessing someone putting her arms in the air with mild frustration. My dramatic flair and habitual scanning for multiple meanings did the rest. Throwing up is, of coarse, a classical crowd pleaser in elementary humor. Following the inescapable logic of throwing up one’s arms led to the sensible call for moderation, thus the suggestion of sticking to finger foods. If in this small digest, you don’t find justification for such a poem, please remember that it wasn’t me who bit off more than they could chew…
He cried out
“I would climb the highest mountain for you!”
She said
“How about doing your fair share of housework?”
This short poem goes out to all the ladies in the house. I am a big fan of epic love. I salute grand romantic gestures. There is an all-to-vacant spot in our universe for such sumptuous stunts for ailing hearts. On the other hand, the foundation of love, and all grand acts, is sharing our day-to-day lives. This includes such mundane tasks at housework. To be a helpmate to one another is very sexy. So step it up fellas. Climb that mountain of laundry. Scale that mountain of chores. Otherwise, she may just clean house all by herself…
Ouch!
That guy should come with a warning label
She said after
Having had
A piece of cautionary tail
You can divide life’s lessons into two basic categories: 1) that which deserves emulating, and 2) that which warrants avoidance. This short, funny poem highlights the latter of life’s lessons, the proverbial cautionary tale. Fortunately, one of the redeeming qualities of life is that we can learn from both positive and negative experiences. Of course, the content of this poem treads on the precarious territory of relationships and the ever-looming potential of the battle of the sexes. Lust and romantic possibilities are often more than enough to pass by potential warning signs in dating relationships. I am a big fan of throwing oneself fully into human relationships. This seems consonant with living life fully. Nonetheless, woo can turn to whoa very fast, often skidding deep into woe. The reality is often that the best way to know where a line exists is by crossing it. There is much in life that is unknown. Spending too much time mapping out every sign and landmark may prevent one from living an actual life. Hopefully, we can offer one another enough room and grace to make mistakes as we careen joyfully through life’s messiness. In fact, such lives deserve emulating…
Despite the high cost of employment
It is still quite popular
This short poem is a takeoff or elaboration of Will Rogers’ infamous statement: Despite the high cost of living, it’s still quite popular. As wage slavery continues largely unabated, many are confronting the seemingly wild proposition of whether it’s worth being employed! Surely, millions of Americans in two-income households have concluded that it just isn’t worth it for the second person to work. By cutting childcare, transportation and other cash costs, as well as cutting the emotional costs of unsatisfying work, many people have experienced enhanced quality of life. The trends to increasing self-employment, contract work, or voluntary part-time will likely receive a boost with Obamacare offering more access to health care that is not dependent on large employers. Similarly, small business entrepreneurship will likely accelerate.
Personally, I have found that being dangerously underemployed is quite wonderful! I have grown to appreciate the value of time over money, and the profound freedom to pursue my passions, most of which are not particularly monetizable. My need to monetize is governed by the organizing principle of: for every dollar I don’t spend is a dollar I don’t have to earn. I regularly ponder the possibilities of “hiring myself” to do tasks that I would otherwise pay cash for, and often get satisfaction in a variety of such tasks. Cooking is a good example of this, where I can eat more cheaply and more nutritiously by preparing my own foods.
As workplace dissatisfaction is endemic, and employees commonly feel dehumanized, the push to finding fulfilling alternatives will likely continue. Hopefully, this can help transform work into a more meaningful enterprise for millions of people. May we all find joyful work and abundant re-creation.
After my vision quest
My shaman told me
From now on
My Indian name would be
“Rhymes with orange”
Only having never
Seen an orange
This short poem can be viewed as one of my more whimsical poems, or perhaps not. The poem begins with an epic undertaking, that of a vision quest. A vision quest is an anthropological term used to denote “(especially among some North American Indians) the ritual seeking of personal communication with the spirit world through visions that are induced by fasting, prayer, and other measures during a time of isolation: typically undertaken by an adolescent male.” Whether the poem descends into the depth of absurdity or ascends into the mysterious heights of the spirit world depends on your perspective. My perspective positions itself on the thin line between the seemingly absurd and meaning itself. While my poems dance about this magnificently thin line, I quite consistently fall on the side of meaning. The venture of poetry itself may be aptly characterized as trying to use words to bring about an experience of reality that is beyond words. The secret twist is in the Indian name chosen by the wise shaman, “Rhymes with orange.” This moniker would be recognized by most poets and most anyone schooled in rhyme. The commonplace meaning of this moniker is that there is no appropriate word to fill the shoes of such an attempted rhyme. Exactly! To drive the point home is the juxtaposition of the reality of “Only having never/Seen an orange. The point of whether this reality is that of the shaman or the vision quester is intentional left vague, because the answer is “yes.” Not only is there the elusive task of trying to find a rhyme for orange, but the poet, even using any existing universe of words (including “orange”), must select words that can never fully capture or exhaust the depth of the underlying reality one is expounding upon! To risk getting impossibly lost in the paradox, the poet expounds on that which either has not been fully seen or cannot be fully seen (or at least communicated). The poet’s job can never be finished. This results in some not bothering with such a Sisyphean task, confronting newly discovered absurdities endlessly. Others recognize the wide open field available for willing workers, mining the never-exhausted world of meaning. Your choice is your. My choice is mine.
When a ship is sinking
It may be wiser to follow the rats
Rather than the humans
That is, if you can tell the difference
This Titanic poem juxtaposes the zeniths and abysses of humans, created only a little less than angels, and rats, a generally unappreciated part of the human experience. This poem sets up a contrast of the ingenuousness of Western civilization and the oft underappreciated wisdom in nature. Amidst the myriad of human-created crises, looking to nature for wisdom can cut through a lot of foolishness. Rats are less complicated creatures than humans, not as prone to confused and conflicted decision-making. This simplicity can be lifesaving in life threatening situations. Of course, when humans are at their lows they are less reliable guides for behavior than rats and exceedingly more dangerous. Calling a human a rat is considered derogatory, but in some situations rats exceed human performance. Maybe we should cut rats some slack. Similarly, in our foolish scurryings about, perhaps we should refrain from the term “rat race,” as this also may be unfair to rats.
If you put a hundred monkeys with typewriters in a room
Would there be any way to tell
That it wasn’t the Fox News copy room?
This short poem is a parody of both the infinite monkey theorem and Fox News.
“The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. In this context, “almost surely” is a mathematical term with a precise meaning, and the “monkey” is not an actual monkey, but a metaphor for an abstract device that produces an endless random sequence of letters and symbols. The relevance of the theorem is questionable—the probability of a monkey exactly typing a complete work such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet is so tiny that the chance of it occurring during a period of time even a hundred thousand orders of magnitude longer than the age of the universe is extremely low (but not zero).”
So, if you watch Fox News long enough you should see the complete works of William Shakespeare! And they said Fox News viewers have a short attention span — and no taste! Unfortunately, Fox News is not random. In this case, randomness would be a blessing. If only Fox News were merely a troop of chattering monkeys! But alas, Faux News has a distaste for fair and balanced news, bringing a distinct point of view or perspective that twists the truth to its own ends. Their outrageous claims pawned off as news leaves many a reasonable person red-faced as Fox News quixotically swings about their moulin rouge derrieres like careless baboons.
While the infinite monkey theorem is a uselessly clever construction, much like Fox News, I find its allusion to evolution a hilarious fortuity. Partly because Fox News clings to a nominal conservative Christian doctrinaire which disdains evolution. Partly because Fox News may, in fact, be the best contemporary evidence that evolution does not exist! May the Fox News copy room never be copied, and may this unbecoming mutation disappear without progeny.
Check out more Top Pun Fox News parodies here.
The Pun is Mightier Than The Sword
Justice Is No Yoke!
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