Poetry of Satire
To play (MIDI), click here Lord Mayo
Academia Nuts
So soon to fully realize
another year's gone by
(our pregnant nine-month years
do really seem to fly)
it's simply been so hectic,
I know you would agree.
More than a few close brushes
were scraped by a reality
so out of step with duty,
and devotion to our mission,
discarding all archaic,
utilitarian ambition.
I do suppose it could have been
the high point of the term
when we held that priceless
seminar that tended to confirm
everything that we thought we'd known
before we had arrived.
It was simply droll and I was
just enthralled! to be deprived
of semi-conscious stimulation
by that Coincidental Meditation,
a seminal vestige of solipsistic
tautological ratiocination.
Wouldn't you say, Sir, that our
Soc. three-oh-one trip to Uruguay
was an excellent example of a
representative sample of the way
the bourgeoisie with notions,
at their middle-class devotions,
do envy Paraguayans, submerged
in their environs, those emotions
that do often emanate when
simple pleasures will rusticate
within the manifold paradigm
of the oligopsonistic state.
I can hardly wait to instigate
the research in my field,
that will make my name a class-
room word, having been revealed
to champion an academic trend
for years before it dies.
I'll use a score of post-docs
who will brush away the flies,
trek my miles, write my notes;
yes, fetch me what I drink,
and for a crumb of credit
they'll tell me what I think.
To play (MIDI), click here Lady Iveagh
Aversion Birth
Once upon a Christmas, I was
very thoroughly psychoanalyzed,
yes, probed and questioned to
a fare-thee-well, then advised
of all my flaws: all the many
chasms, seams and cracks that fault
the landscape of my mind and
the underlying schisms that assault
the trifurcated, unexpurgated
source of my personality,
to so reduce my affinity
for the odd abnormality.
That was my introduction to
the Shrine of Freudian Psychiatry,
a necessary evil, before I'd start
collecting, the customary fee
as High-Priest, instead of abject,
prostrate (donating) worshipper,
Great Panjandrum, judging both
defendant and self-same prosecutor;
at all times trying to remain aloof,
thus avoiding gloom or mirth,
both of those emotions unseemly for
Freud's representative on Earth.
For many years, I have counselled those
who regret their manifold confusions;
there's been no doubt that I've relieved
so many, of all their expensive illusions.
Lately, all that psychoanalytic method-
ology has seemed to fall from favor;
we've been forced to find a substitute
that discretionary incomes will savor.
Lacking recent practice, I've really grown
quite unskilled in all that psychobabble;
since pharmaceuticals supplanted our religion,
quite obsolescing now, that mystic Scrabble.
It's really insupportable, in that
we're reduced to writing prescriptions
to make a living helping others,
alleviate their mind's conniptions.
Of course, no analyst could ever forget
those hour-long sessions on the couch
when we demonstrated such patience to
our patients, whether grump or slouch.
It was a minor miracle that we could stay
awake as each of their tales converged;
now all that that's required is a substance,
in which their minds may be submerged.
To play (MIDI), click here The Jointure
The Public Wheel
Show me just one practicing politician
and I'll show you an honest man, though
it's not likely that they've met before.
Wait till you see how he puts on a show,
as he wheels and deals and dazzles so
your honest man with his honest needs,
mesmerizes with the cobra's dance,
paralyzes with the cobra's glance, he pleads
for election again, just one more time
on the most reasonable grounds, no doubt,
that only he who got us into the present
mess, has the experience to get us out.
Like the proverbial chicken issued
forth by that philosophical egg,
democracy is how politicians ensure
their offspring will live to renege
on campaign promises, just an example
of a political contradiction in terms,
a means of reproduction, I do believe,
in the past, associated only with worms.
Like those slugs from which they sprang,
politicians take nourishment from waste;
it's hard to tell one end from another,
being justifiably considered two-faced.
Proclamations are issued at all times,
declaring just what they always opposed
and they are never, ever more upset than
whenever their honest intent is exposed.
I sure hope that you do not anticipate
accomplishment from political appointees;
it is our elected pillars of achievement
who must select all those disappointees.
Just remember, they don't call them "parties"
for nothing and just having political clout
ensures a high place at the community table;
more, a place at the trough for one's snout.
It is always the fifty-five buck haircut
and the shiny new, four-week-salary suit,
that lead me to suspect an innocent plea
concerning just who is really whose cahoot.
What do you think we can do in the future?
Can we ever recapture control of our fate;
to get rid of the pirates now at the helm
and set a new course for the ship of state?
The answers to these questions are nothing and no!
Politicians who misuse the public consent
arise not from breeding when together in bed;
but spore freely in the oceans of government.
A word about satires is warranted at this junction. Poems need not be funny to be satires,
merely bitter.
To play (MIDI), click here Connor Macareavy
Blue Blood
How many times have I gotta tell you?
A cop's got no friend at any time,
except a brother cop.
And you tell me
you can't find one
when you need one
and it's a crime;
I say to you,
I can't ever find your civilians
unless I don't need them.
But then, and only then,
they turn out
like their mindful crimes don't pay,
demanding my respect.
What am I, their doorman?
You can't ever know what it feels like
to carry a gun and a badge;
to stand and take crud
no matter what.
Then the badge better weigh more than the gun,
or Internal is out for blue blood.
How would you like have to render assistance
to every other jerk,
who's just run out of gas
and wonder, each time,
when you get out of your car,
if you're gonna need backup,
to cover your ass?
The first thing you learn out there on the streets
is nobody,
but nobody,
knows when it's gonna go pop
and some cowboy decides to get to the moon
by pulling a six-gun and needle
and shooting them up.
The trouble with that is,
nuts are never content
to knock themselves off,
away out on the outskirts;
no, they want company to take
along for the ride,
which is why we wear this vest
beneath our shirts.
Have I mentioned the junkies,
the psychos, the pimps, the juvies,
domestic disputes and muggings I've seen?
The crashes....
My God, do you know what it's like to pull
a dying child from a wreck?....
It's just fuckin' obscene.
You're always on duty,
whenever John Q. figures he needs you
and you'll notice cops play but seldom relax;
the next time you're at a big party
and see two guys grazing each other,
left arm by left arm, guarding their backs,
they're talking softly together
in a monotone shroud,
heads slightly inclined,
apprehending hearsay,
catching the room with a two-headed glance;
those guys are cops having fun!
Like they expected a call from dispatching.
Every cop I know started out as a hero,
a daydreaming child who wanted it all,
saving fair maidens from a fate worse than death,
showing some kid the right way to go;
how does he walk a beat
through all the hooker jailbait?
Every once in a while,
there'll be another big headline
about some cop caught on the take
or maybe blowing away a civilian;
just remember he's one in a thousand
and he never started out
to go the wrong way
or to betray
those he saved in his daydreams.
Something happened along the way
to some of those who were your best,
like a curse that eats away at all
and some will fall.
Don't get me wrong,
it's not all bad, though;
more often than not, it gets worse.
A Lovely Lass To The Friar Came
Pogonophora
(Tube Worm)
Jee'zuz loves ya and ya'all better believe in me or
He'll strike ya down with demons, even worse, sins
of the flesh to rot your body, mind and soul so ya'll
know how much He loves ya; that's where faith begins.
And now while both my sisters in Gawd, Visalia and Visine,
praise a never-ending Him with a never-ever-ending hymn,
be sure to call the numbers on the screen, so ya can be sent
a copy of my latest book: It's called "Fasting, Slim and Prim"
and don't forget to tithe Gawd's gifts to Gawd's friend
and yours. Remember, the Bible says that "My Father's House
has many mansions" and I know ya'all surely will get yours
after ya build mine for me and God and my teary bleary spouse.
Ya'all know some preachers to be found on the Medium of Gawd
have broke His Ten commandments with their unholy dumpin'
of discounted chains and medals, cut-rate healings, holy water
blessed by Elvis and all those statues with Jee'zuz' head a-bumpin'
on the dashboard or the back seat and one, sacrilege to speak,
one where His Eyes light up when ya step down on your brakes.
Those abominations come with stickers to glue right on the bumper
"Screech if ya love Jee'zuz" but I tell ya all of them are fakes,
because they haven't passed through the Holy Cave of Sacred
Tongues, a shrine solely owned by our TV Ministry of Gawd,
and so cannot perform the wondrous miracles ya'all entitled to,
until they're deeply soul-kissed by the Spirit of our Holy Lawd.
The next time that my good friend in Gawd whose name is Oral
(I'd rather not know how he got that name), speaks with Him
on coming Home for more than an overnighter, think of how
good it would feel to help the man out as ya fill to the brim,
a passed-around hat with twenties, even hundred-dollar bills.
But send it to me, not to him, while he's whining on the air
and I'll beg Gawd to call him home on the first available cloud:
be proud to know that your donations will go to pay the fare.
Though, thanks to Jim and Jimmy, to speak of denominations,
there's lots more prayer than big ones in your offerings these days.
We do praise the Lawd of course, but the butcher and the baker
(not big on Catholic candles) worship the joy that cash conveys.
The University of Gawd's House had to close its business school,
and the audit on our theme park, which is now a bankrupt shell,
reflects a lack of mundane cunning. Who could predict our visitors
would forego ascent to Paradise and gravitate instead to Hell?
The souvenirs were retail disaster and now we're overloaded
with angel's wings and halos, all the rest of that holy scrap.
But some may be called on to beautify UGH's Merman Memorial Choir,
and the rest will provide good tinder for that gilt-edged firetrap.
In these latter days I must worry: Who will come and follow me?
Who among Our desciples shall see to the harvest for the Lawd?
He must be a man of conviction with no uncertain appeal, and one
who will skim but a little, until I've gone to my final reward.
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