Last night I was reading Elizabeth McFarland's "Over the Summer Water". She has a lovely poem there "Flower Market Rittenhouse Square", that starts:

All dressed in new linen,,
The girls in the Square
Are bare-kneed
And fair-kneed
And young as their hair.

And I thought I would give it a try, but alas, I suppose my thoughts were not as pure and lovely as Elizabeth's so in my exercise, I came up with a highly mediocre animosity poem with only one salvegable line.

But it felt good. My sneers turned to cheers and my grunts to hunts for the right words. (Note Michael Cantor's helpful post on visuwords at GT.)

So I had the thought this a.m. that we could all (or some of us anyways) cleanse our souls with some animosity poems that challenged our formalist yearnings.

Not necessarily tetrameter, abccb, (as above) but limerick, epigram, clerihew, lament, complaint, whatever.

It is OK to hate snow-shoveling, Wall Street bankers (in general), the boy scout leader of your youth, the baseball player who couldn't catch a pop-fly, hey you got imagination. Or nonexistent people, I live in a villa with no neighbors upstairs, but so what.

It goes without saying no ad hom--well, the cultivated and clever folks reading this will not need any reminders on this point, will they?

Old poems or new, it doesn't matter. But cleverness counts, whether form or content, or hopefully both.

So don't kick your dog. Cleanse your soul before Christmas.

Animosity poems!!!

Plea to my Landlord

My ceiling's a-clatter
They fill me with fright,
attacking
and thwacking
from morning to night.

She's mad as a hatter,
as ugly as sin.
She's all pride
and wall-eyed
and reeking of gin.

Her husband grows fatter.
He fills up my room.
He's inbred,
He's brain-dead:
a walking legume.

So please to brick-bat her,
and give him his shares.
***Inspect them.
****** Reject them.
******** Expel them.
************ To-hell them.
*************** Rebuke them.
******************Then nuke them.
The couple upstairs.

Good one Janice, looks funny reads funny-- thanks for the laugh!


A Memo from the Mail Room

I think it’s time I told you how you get beneath my skin,
that when I bare my teeth at you, it’s not a friendly grin.
And so, to clear the air, I've made a list I want to share.
Perhaps there’s something here of which you may not be aware.

The only reason Monday is so hard on me is you!
I'm fed up with the never-ending crap you seem to spew.
Your preachy-righteous quoting of the only book you've read
only shows me just how thinly your intelligence is spread.

I often see you sleeping at your desk when I walk by,
and you ought to see a doctor 'bout that thing that's on your eye.
Your pictures of vacation, with you standing on the beach,
give me shivers of revulsion like a nails-on-chalkboard screech.

You have disgusting habits and they make me want to heave.
I’ve seen you licking ketchup off your filth encrusted sleeve.
I saw you pick a booger and then wipe it on your phone.
I shudder when I think of what you do when you’re alone.

I’m sickened by the time you spend just kissing boss's ass,
and surprised that you have not succumbed to all that noxious gas.
You're late for work five days a week; it's really getting old.
There is no number high enough to count the lies you've told.

Please submit your resignation, cause I’m edgy and I’m nervous.
You should get an application from the local postal service.
I hear that they are hiring; I'm sure you'll fit right in.
They have important jobs to fill; they've lost some staff again.


[This message has been edited by fivefootone (edited November 25, 2008).]

ROFLMAO Oh My God!!! Janice, Donna, you've made my day - perhaps my entire month!! These are both hysterically funny as well as very well-written.

It doesn't get any better than this!!

I read the two of these and my boss had to leave his office to come into mine to see what I was laughing so hard about.

I'll never be able to explain it. My Chinese is insufficient and his understanding of my English deserts him when I'm gleeful and fast-talking.

Excuse me while I go compose myself.

Hahahahaha

Animosity is my stock in trade, but I'll start with a translation I did of Sor Juana:

SONNET FOR CELIO
Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz

... You claim that I've forgotten you? You lie
to say that I'd remember to forget you.
My memory never had a place to set you
from which it could forget you, which is why

... my thoughts are now distinct and don't apply
in any way to you; they've never met you;
they don't know how to slander or regret you,
or if you'd be offended should they try.

... If being loved had ever been your due,
then you could be forgotten and might claim
the glory of a power you once knew,

... but you are not entitled to such fame.
"Forget" and "don't recall" are not the same.
There's nothing to forget regarding you.

Roger, good one. I'd hate to be on the receiving end of those words--ouch!

here's another that seems to fit here.


Ferocious Precocious


“Where do dollars come from, Dad?”
I told her from the mint.
She scrunched her face and glared at me
--eyes narrowed to a squint.

“Where does money come from, Dad?”
I told her, from my boss,
who pays me for the work I do.
She stiffened up, arms crossed.

“He gives the green kind to you, Dad?”
I said, “I get a check.”
She yelled, “That isn’t dollars, Dad!”
The veins bulged on her neck.

I said, “A check’s a promise, hon,
that his bank gives to mine.
It doesn’t change to dollar bills
until both sides are signed.”

She said, “I want a promise check!
You gotta write it now!
And help me sign it cursive style
because I don’t know how.”

“Make sure there’s lots of zeros, Dad.”
The hairs stood on my head.
“‘Cause that’s what I’ll inherit when
you finally get dead.”




[This message has been edited by fivefootone (edited November 26, 2008).]

Fallout

It was your way right from the very start
To be the partner always in control;
Though love was there, you made me feel my role
Was that of minion, not of counterpart.
Though equals in success and duly smart,
Somehow our halves could never make a whole;
When months of this had passed, it took its toll
And kept me clinging, fraught, with half a heart.
For all the times we shared a tender bed,
I kept recalling things that you had said
To tear me down, and put me in my place;
But finally I snapped: harsh words were said,
And once again I crave the days ahead
Now that I'll never have to see your face.

Here's a children's poem:

EAU DE LIVERWURST

.... If they ran a contest
for the kid who smells the worst,
.... when it comes to prizes
you would easily take first!

.... You stink like dirty diapers
or a sewer pipe that burst.
.... A pig inside a toilet
would take second. You'd take first!

....Your stench should come in bottles
sold as "Eau de Liverwurst."
....Every kid would buy some.
You can bet I'd be the first!

Bewitched

Mon dieu! I cannot live with you,
a girl whose dark charms grew
for seven long unholy years
after we said, I do.

Oh no, I must be rid of you,
whose spells would turn me blue,
moving me to violent tears
with magic that you knew.

True, it’s true, I’m leaving you,
who’d melt my mind to glue,
and daily dig my heart out
to boil it in your brew.

Now, I’m going, cursing you,
your tongue a torture screw
racking me to finally shout,
adieu, you witch, we’re through!


Ralph

John Betjeman at the Supermarket


I cannot bear to even see
a supermarket, much less be
inside this ghastly philistine
insult to proper food and wine.

The customers seem unaware
that only savages could bear
these ersatz products. ‘They’ remove
the taste so none can disapprove.

Indoctrinated and ill-dressed
the masses have become obsessed
with dried tomatoes and goat cheeses,
pizzas to put in their freezers.

The vulgar chic of magazines,
means all have tight designer jeans
and fantasies of Tuscany
now far removed from Italy.

They gossip on cell phones so we
can envy their prosperity:
“I’m at the biscuits now. How’s Kyle?”
For this she blocks the shopping aisle.

As legionnaire’s air circulates
with muzak, traffic gravitates
to pet food made from ground-up beast.
Canned kangaroo for pussy’s feast.

May all their stocks and shares collapse
and then some day we will, perhaps,
return to modest places where
we taste the food and breathe the air.