[maggie flanagan-wilkie]

mfwilkie



How do I hate you? Shall I count the ways
or let you suffer, stew in your regrets?
What you have done will earn you no rosettes
from me, the days of my orgasmic yeas

are over. I will celebrate the Spring
alone. No, not alone, my pain will keep
me company. That I let you get heartdeep
inside of me was my mistake. This thing,

this 'my revenge', it almost brought me down
to Gamesville. Where you live. You, and your egos.
How it goes, this chance for payback, I suppose
it really is all up to me. You clown.

March madness came and went, and April died
without a flower. May is classified.

[John Whitworth]

Roger, if someone were to.... I say, what larks!

[Roger Slater]

You obviously have no regard for camels whatsoever.

[Jerome Betts]

All this brilliant bile has been ad hominem, as it were, up to now, so I thought I'd try a different angle as the comp is called Bete Noire.

How do I hate you? Let me count the ways,
Black slug, who feasts on foliage I feed
And fouls with slime like sticky silver glaze
The hollyhocks whose leaves you’ve filigreed.

My hate takes form as rolls of copper tape,
As beer-traps, salt, soot, blue metaldehyde,
Or tongs to grasp your loathsome little shape
And tee it up for gastropodicide!

[Roger Slater]

How do I hate you? Let me count the ways.
In ways one could call delicate, yet rough;
With resolution, but a heart that strays;
Excessively, and yet not quite enough;
With all my soul, but still with some reserve;
With passion, but with stretches of ennui;
Courageously, and yet with little nerve;
With recklessness, and yet still cautiously.
I hate you all the ways man can despise,
And thus the count cannot be told by math;
I hate you blindly, yet with open eyes;
I hate you sanely, like a psychopath;
I hate you underneath me, yet above;
I hate you when I think this may be love.

[RCL]

The Small White Snail

How do I hate you? Let me count the ways
you make a mockery of my weary days.
You smear your slime through rows of precious peas
and murder tender leaves like elm disease.
You will ignore or spurn my sovereign right;
and wage pernicious wars throughout the night,
and I, day after day, rebuild the ruins.
Sometimes I’m sure your crooked horns play tunes:
sneers, satiric taunts and sluggish jeers.
I’ve glossed your cursive lines with fear and tears
as baffling whorls and finely crazed white shell
drive me so mad and confused that I can’t tell
how your subversive tricks and stunts survive—
despite my wrath and poison, even thrive!
Call me Ahab. Call the hated snail
my Moby Dick, My Great White Whale.


Call me Ralph

[Mary Meriam]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

I hate you underneath me, yet above;
I hate you when I think this may be love.

Brilliant, Roger.

[Martin Parker]

How do I hate you? Let me count the ways.
I hate you for that swiftly cooling glaze
Which sets before you even reach my plate.
Can no chef keep you in a warmer state?

I hate you for your taste and smell. They’re brassical.
Their aftermath is classically gassical.
And, what is more, I know each rumbling burp’ll
Prove I hate you -- green or sprouting purple.

I hate you for your little flecks of green
Which stick between my teeth and always mean
My dinner dates, convinced that I have caries,
Say “No” persistently. It never varies.

Your flowers are cold, your stalks are indigestible.
Your side effects and taste are both detestable.
You wreck my social life. It’s incontestable --
Broccoli, you are a vile comestible.