Thread for Short Poems

[Dekalb_Blues]

~
Reflections On Ice-Breaking
Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.

Common Sense
Why did the Lord give us agility,
If not to avoid responsibility?

Upon Returning From The Gotham City To My Adopted Hometown
I could have loved New York
Had I not loved Balti-more.

To Keep Your Marriage Brimming
To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you're wrong, admit it;
Whenever you're right, shut up.

I Do, I Will, I Have [excerpt]
....That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce,
Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of
  the immovable object and the irresistible force.
So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate
   and combat over everything debatable and combatable,
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life,
   particularly if he has income and she is pattable.

My Dream
This is my dream,
My own sweet dream;
Fervently I dreamt it.
I dreamt -- I dreamt that my hair was kempt . . .
Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it.

Introspective Reflection
I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance
Were it not for making a living, which is rather a nouciance.

Crossing The Border
Senescence begins
And middle age ends
The day your descendants
Outnumber your friends.

Everybody Tells Me Everything
I find it very difficult to enthuse
Over the current news.
Just when you think that at last the outlook is so black
   that it can grow no blacker,
        it worsens;
And that is why I do not like the news,
   because there has never been an era
     when so many things were going so right
        for so many of the wrong persons.

Family Court
One would be in less danger
From the wiles of a stranger
If one's own kin and kith
Were more fun to be with.

Ode To A Baby
A bit of talcum
Is always walcum.

I Didn't Go To Church Today
I didn't go to church today,
I trust the Lord to understand.
The surf was swirling blue and white,
The children swirling on the sand.
He knows, He knows how brief my stay,
How brief this spell of summer weather,
He knows when I am said and done
We'll have plenty of time together.

Reflection On The Fallibility Of Nemesis
He who is ridden by a conscience
Worries about a lot of nonscience;
He without benefit of scruples
His fun and income soon quadruples.

Requiem
There was a young belle of Natchez
Whose garments where always in patchez.
When comment arose
On the state of her clothes,
She drawled, "When Ah itchez, Ah scratchez!"

Samson Agonistes
I test my bath before I sit
And I'm always moved to wonderment
That what chills the finger not a bit
Is so frigid upon the fundament.

Spring Comes To Murray Hill [Midtown Manhattan]
I sit in an office at 244 Madison Avenue
And say to myself You have a responsible job havenue?
Why then do you fritter away your time on this doggerel?
If you have a sore throat you can cure it by using a good goggeral,
If you have a sore foot you can get it fixed by a chiropodist,
And you can get your original sin removed by St. John the Bopodist,
Why then should this flocculent lassitude be incurable?
Kansas City, Kansas, proves that even Kansas City needn't always be Missourible.
Up, up my soul! This inaction is abominable.
Perhaps it is the result of disturbances abdominable.
The Pilgrims settled Massachusetts in 1620 when they landed on a stone hummock.
Maybe if they were here now they would settle my stomach.
Oh, if only I had the wings of a bird
Instead of being confined on Madison Avenue I could soar in a jiffy to Second or Third.

The Firefly
The firefly's flame
Is something for which science has no name.
I can think of nothing eerier
Than flying around glowing by one's posteerier.

The Lama
The one-L lama,
He's a priest.
The two-L llama,
He's a beast.
And I will bet
A silk pajama
There isn't any
Three-L lllama.*

*The author's attention has been called to a type of conflagration known
as a "three-alarmer". Phooey. -- O. S.

The Hippopotamus
Behold the hippopotamus!
We laugh at how he looks to us,
And yet in moments dank and grim,
I wonder how we look to him.

Peace, peace, thou hippopotamus!
We really look all right to us,
As you no doubt delight the eye
Of other hippopotami.

The Cow
The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk.

The Lion
Oh, weep for Mr. and Mrs. Bryan!
He was eaten by a lion;
Following which, the lion's lioness
Up and swallowed Bryan's Bryaness.

The Middle
When I remember bygone days
I think how evening follows morn;
So many I loved were not yet dead,
So many I love were not yet born.

The Ostrich
The ostrich roams the great Sahara.
Its mouth is wide, its neck is narra.
It has such long and lofty legs,
I'm glad it sits to lay its eggs.

The Panther
The panther is like a leopard,
Except it hasn't been peppered.
Should you behold a panther crouch,
Prepare to say Ouch.
Better yet, if called by a panther,
Don't anther.

The Parent
Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore.
And that's what parents were created for.

The Wasp
The wasp and all his numerous family
I look upon as a major calamity.
He throws open his nest with prodigality,
But I distrust his waspitality.

The Octopus
Tell me, O Octopus, I begs
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus,
If I were thou, I'd call me Us.

Achieving Happiness
There is only one way to achieve happiness
On this terrestrial ball,
And that is to have either a clear conscience
Or none at all.

The Catsup Bottle
First a little
Then a lottle.

The Plight of the Pelican
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He takes in his beak enough food for a week,
But I'm damned if I see how the helican.

I Love Me
I'm always my own best cheerer;
Myself I satisfy;
Till I take a look in the mirror
And see things I to I.

The Old Dog Barks Backwards
In my mind's reception room
Which is what, and who is whom?
I notice when the candle's lighted
Half the guests are uninvited.
And oddest fancies, merriest jests,
Come from these unbidden guests.


The Purple Cow
I never saw a purple cow.
I never hope to see one.
But I can tell you anyhow
I'd rather see than be one.