Fall Festival

(by request: “Fall Festival.” I don’t really feel this grumpy, but I do have dishes to wash. And I do love Christmas.)

Pumpkins and spices and butternut squash
Leave me with millions of dishes to wash.
The smells of the pies and the hot cider marry,
But big bags of apples are wicked to carry.
Baseball is cool but my team keeps on losing,
I like all my friends but I’m tired of boozing,
The weather is good but I’m sure it won’t last,
So hurry here, Christmas, hurry here fast.

Inconsiderate Blogging Poets

(reader submission – a friend of Claudia’s puts his foot down…and solves his own problem, I might add)

When people don’t update their blogs
The rest of us slumber like dogs
But you are a jerk
If you nap at work
So update! or I will saw logs.

Poems within Poems within Poems

(by request – a poem about Dune)

On Arrakis we eat the spice,
But drinking? We’ve got to think twice,
For water is rare.
So drinkers, take care,
A spoonful will have to suff-ha! I bet you
Thought I was going to end this
Like a limerick.
But I didn’t.
Plans within plans within plans.

RTD musings

(unintentional submission via an online article posted crazily by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. I’d link you but it has since been removed. If you read it twenty times, you reach a sense of inner peace that can only be termed “sublime.” HARNEYF2, everyone.)

Virginia an edge in the world.
Rivers
XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX
HARNEYF2

Say What You See

(guest poet – Bart Fitzhugh)

so we went camping

on the mountain top

was scrawled:

“bonersaurus”

Whispered Low

(by request: What is Shahadaroba)

OK, I can make sense of this.
“The Nile,”
“Silent land,”
“Ancient sand,”
Egypt, right?

OK, we’re in Egypt.
We’re in Egypt and we’re whispering,
Because a dream is dead
And we’re upset about it.
So far so good.

OK, we’re whispering Egyptians
Who are pissed about their dead dreams.
We’ve made up this word
To say to each other quietly
That means “the future is much better than the past.”

OK, looking forward, looking forward.
“Facing the future,”
Got it.
Hakuna matata.
We’re all standing around whispering to each other,
“Shahadaroba,”
Partly to encourage,
And partly because it sounds cool.
The pyramids are behind us,
The camels are waiting to be fed,
Nefertiti is really beautiful,
Our age is becoming pretty golden,
But the future will be a lot better?
Better than our golden age?
When we’re all dead?

OK, “Shahadaroba” is kind of a dick thing to say to us,
Actually.

Survival School Haiku

(by request – a poem about SERE)

Survival School is
Top Model for dudes
Only… no Tyra

Recession

Dr. Angelou
I was inspired by a speech you just gave
You told me I was a rainbow
In the clouds of people’s lives
You said I should be myself
Achieve for me
Push myself a little bit
In everything I do
But look,
You are speaking at a conference!
For my work!
What is happening to the damn world.
Seriously.

“Scream”

Chris Cornell, what is this…what is this trash?
Are you hurting, my love, are you hurting for cash?
I get bad enough grief when I’m out with a friend
And they whine, “Is this Badmotorfinger again?
Have you noticed that now it is Two-Thousand-Nine,”
And I’m happy to fight for you. Truly, that’s fine.
And then Audioslave — I cringe but I listen
I won’t turn it off under one good condition:
You cease and desist this whole hip hop mistake.
It’s early still, baby, it’s still not too late.
If you still insist, well then, wounds — they will heal.
At least our man Reznor is keeping it real.

Constant Gardener

(I have encouraged several friends to experience the cathartic beauty of fast poetry. It can do for them what it did for me, was my theory, and I wanted to share that inner peace. Here’s a submitted poem)

by Bart Fitzhugh

Each day I rake and hoe
In my backyard garden
I also take men’s souls
I am a true assassin