[Maryann Corbett]

J.V. Cunningham gives us quite a few poems he called epigrams, a whole collection. Some of them are too long to fit my sense of the epigram, but here's a short one:


from Epigrams: A Journal, #30

This Humanist whom no beliefs constrained
Grew so broad-minded he was scatter-brained.

And a slightly longer one:


from Epigrams: A Journal, #20


After some years Bohemian came to this—
This Maenad with hair down and gaping kiss
Wild on the barren edge of under fifty.
She would finance his art if he were thrifty.

[Maryann Corbett]

R.L. Barth served as a Marine reconnaissance leader in Vietnam. I haven't found any of his epigrams about war itself, but here's what he has to say about what was happening around it:

Social Darwinism

Professionally aided,
The Privileged became,
Until the danger faded,
The weak and halt and lame.

[ross hamilton hill]

I once had a rose named after me
and I was very flattered,
except for the catalog description:
no good in a bed,
but fine up against a wall.

.....................................Eleanor Roosevelt

[Michael Cantor]

I'll bet you $100 or the Australian equivalent, Ross - loser to donate it to the Sphere - that you can't substantiate it's an Eleanor Roosevelt quote. You're a googling hot shot - why don't you google this and see what you find. What I find is no actual source or reference - just the attribution to Eleanor Roosevelt - and any number of posts indicating it's nonsense.

I assume it's been around for a while. Otherwise, it would mention Hillary.

[Maryann Corbett]

Here are two from Jan Schreiber's Pecadilloes:

The Angler

Pompous has found a worthy mark at last:
young and amazed, she dotes upon his airs,
swallowing lines he's practiced years to cast:
She strikes, he reels, as they go up the stairs.

The Crowd

They watched him drawn and quartered,
xxxxxthe wretched sinner,
and when they got back home
xxxxxsat down to dinner.

I'm editing back because I hesitate to post again when I've posted so much. Here's one of Dan Brown's little gems:

Epitaph for Deconstruction

A puff of wind that really shouldn't
Have blown so many so far astray--
And yet not anyone who wouldn't
Have come to nothing anyway.

[Roger Slater]

a politician is an arse upon
which everyone has sat except a man
(e e cummings)

[Roger Slater]

EPIGRAM V
Baltasar de Alcazar

... Juana, what's behind
my torment? Only you.
My heartaches would be few
if you were less unkind.
... It doesn't seem absurd
for it to be inferred
your motive is my money.
If so, then kiss me, honey,
right on this poem's third word.




Original Spanish:

Juana, pues que no dais cabo
Al tormento en que me veis,
Y de ordinario volvéis
A mis lástimas el rabo,
Temo que queréis dinero;
Si es cierto lo que refiero,
Bien podéis de aquí adelante
Besarme en el consonante
Que tiene el verso primero.