Tag Archive: poem

Plumber Poem

She imitated a successful plumber,

knocking on doors with no reason,

replacing arachnids for the saddest girls

and knocking back orange mimosas on the pine-edged porch

after a hard day of washers.

Eventually she enrolled everyone in her ranch dip diet

showing them how to twirl the cylindrical vegetables

and laughing at the simple acceptance of their faces.

It was only when she took off the olive garments

and confronted the same refrigerator as always

that the parades and the banners took on the same bad aftertaste,

the metallic knowledge of the underwhelmed.


Like Mummies…

Like mummies engulfed in jello

They were cranberry-drenched

The black raisin eyes squinting

At a spidery destiny.

They made the intermittent, slip-filled march

into the forest of gauzy brambles

on a miniature mission, but no less harmful for that.

Desiccated bees and abandoned abdomens lay strewn along their path.

Lanterns the size of dwarf pennies did little to assist them

Giving each other distrustful stares,

they tramped above ever soggier leaves,

into a horizon of sarcophagus gray.

Toy Haiku

The raft of beige toys

Drifted on gray Lake Ennui

Dry trout slept below.

The burger prowled across gray plains of segmented cockroaches

Dripping globules of grease, its mutant mouth poised in a reindeer-sized gape

A heedless genetically modified patty, burnt bacon bit eyes crispy with vengeful drive

Leaving behind a trial of meat slime on the blasted earth

Giving voice to an onion-scented raspy growl

It had guzzled small crippled poodles, toasted dachshunds,

A singed, brittle sponge that had at first appeared to be a shrunken burnt squirrel

Still its appetite vaunted, a burger demanding to conquer,

Tearing away from its bun-bound past with one dull gnash after another

One in a mutant landscape of ravenous mad meat.

My Bad Poetry #19

‘and the mermaid said, why bother?’


April is the coolest month, making

Swim trunks out of old jean shorts, mixing

Tanqueray and lager, stirring

Stray dogs with spry brains.

YouTube kept us dazed, covering

ears in formica rhymes, slipping

A tiny boy in tired viewers.

Seymour surveyed us, driving over the wet interstate

With a powder of beans; we stood on the fish-drenched wharf,

And went on in green mist, into the new Starbucks,

And drank macchiatos, and passed out.

My Bad Poetry #18

When the curtain opened on the severed cat head

We knew it would be a long night at the theater.

Burnham forgot his comb

And the holographic bowling ball failed to appear.

The women of the croissant society charged extra for gum

While the mealy-mouthed protagonist

Could not find the exit from the rumpled, burlap corridor.

Champagne spilled on the meatloaf,

Excruciating dog noises came from backstage.

At least, the rain was convincing.

My Bad Poetry #17

At the Elvis Costello Dance-Off

Eating tuna casserole with a spoon

Her concrete blouse and crab bracelets

Attracted the short-haired men.

They downed thin martinis in a song

Stepped over lengths of the bespectacled fallen

And tussled, pulling her arms toward both exits.

She laughed like a pleased chimp, licorice hair bobbing,

As the surly imitations assaulted her, slurring disdain.

My Bad Poetry #16

Like a hairy yogurt ball

That sat upon the mountaintop, preeminent,

The disjointed yeti gave a glowering glare around the towering pines.

There, in the branches, a Fascist runt

Leftover from the war.

He growled the carnivorous rumble of a true

Flat-footed monster of the north,

And reached, with his all-engrappling paw,

Until the diminutive escapee,

His small moustache a tiny wrinkle of blonde,

Screamed like he had never screamed before

And then,

With the alacrity of an anchovy in pursuit,

Vanished in the maw of the devouring beast.

Emily Dickinson’s Unpublished Punctuation

My Bad Poetry #15

I took a road trip into your girlfriend’s mind

Where I found hot sauce dripping

on all the potato burritos.

She has harangues she hasn’t even finished,

peppers she’s pelting you with in her head.

Like other waitresses, she’s dressed in aluminum colored skirts

She contains jewelry pilfered from Peruvian thrift shops.

Perched above the giant hamburger, she gazes down,

Her peppermint lipstick taunting you.

“I have four kinds of pickle,” she chants,

in that sing-song waitress way

as though twirling an invisible tassel.

She totes up her bubblegum achievements for the day

She rides into a new Arizona,

her carriages decoratively perforated.


knowing you’re allergic to German vegetables.

“And let’s finish that off with an eggnog milkshake.”