[Michael Cantor]

Aged Whine

My name is Michael Cantor and I come
to poetry too late in life to bang
out unaffected rhyme – I bear the sum
of years in suits and neckties, dreams that sang
of balance sheets and factories - and much less
crowds every line – old Yiddish curses,
half-remembered stories, thoughts that mess
and twist my words in visa verses.

My mind retains with seamless care
ten recipes for boneless leg of lamb;
a fourth round draft choice jostles Baudelaire,
all cram together in an anagram
of names, dates, faces, places; poems abound
in all the corners of my mental Lost and Found


[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited March 29, 2004).]

[RCL]

How Pleasant!

How pleasant to know Mr. Ralph
who currently dwells with himself
because he’s private and grouchy,
and women find him touchy.

He once committed marriage,
some might say a miscarriage
of justice. He served his time—
his punishment fit the crime.

A sybarite who drinks,
his doggerel mostly stinks,
but when he’s down, depressed,
he posts online a jest.

How pleasant to know Mr. Ralph!
His Shadow’s a genial Self,
a public man who’ll smile,
an aging man sans style—

who longs to be retired,
before his ticket’s expired.



------------------
Ralph

[Janet Kenny]

Michael

My gift to you.
Janet


Aged Whine

His name is Michael Cantor and he comes
to poetry too late in life to bang
out unaffected rhyme – he bears the sum
of years in suits and neckties, dreams that sang
of balance sheets and factories - and much less
crowds every line – old Yiddish curses,
half-remembered stories, thoughts that mess
and twist his lines to visa verses.

His mind retains with seamless care
ten recipes for boneless leg of lamb;
a fourth round draft choice jostles Baudelaire,
all cram together in an anagram
of names, dates, faces, places; poems abound
in all the corners of his mental Lost and Found

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited March 29, 2004).]

[Janet Kenny]

Kate
I love your poem. The others are good but yours is special IMO.
Janet

[Charles Albert]

They're all good... inspiring, even, and while reading them I had many promising ideas flit through my mind on what I could write. But the combination of an aging brain and a day job have conspired to reduce me to this:

How pleasant to meet him, Albert,
for poets in need of a trope
to cover the word "debonaire"
can invoke him thus: "not that dope."

If you come to his book on a shelf,
think "Self-published", not "What awful miracle…?"
And his nose, like his light verse itself
though amusing, is nothing like Lear-ical

Yes, the best to be said for his name
could comfort the least fêted clown:
It's not tied to too much that is lame
just the dross he had time to write down.

[Zita Zenda]

How pleasant to know Zita Z.
Who is perfect in every way!
Some mope, she is better than me,
But most others have little to say.

She slinks through her life looking glamorous,
Her breasts are synthetically large;
Financial success is preposterous,
She’s no longer able to charge.

She has cats, and a boyfriend, and daughters,
All blessings, and sometimes a curse;
Long ago she was drenched by warm waters,
But this winter just couldn't be worse.

She works in a corporate office,
With Partners intent on their wealth;
She’ll never be more than a novice,
She’s far more concerned for her health.

She has no friends, unreal or imaginable,
Her attitude’s down in the dumps;
Her voluble skills are abominable,
She wears a mad frown, her heart thumps.

When she sings in the steaming hot shower,
Her cats take their sauna, and purr…
They keep hoping she won’t hit that sour
Note: the shrieking to which they refer.

She howls over 79th street,
She howls on the way to the park;
She packs up a picnic of mincemeat,
And saves it for after it’s dark.

She writes, but she doesn’t read, verses,
She doesn’t pursue her degree;
She is held back by too many bosses,
How pleasant to know Zita Z.

[Ernst A Kipling]

Ernst A. Kipling
writes with a crippling
handicap: stippling
freckles adorn

face, arms, and shoulders;
freckletude smoulders
all through his folders
poems fill when born.

E. A. K.

[Lightning Bug]

"Musings of the Poet Bug"


Heed, young bard, so swift of pen,
thy flower days are fleeting.
You, though once the Muses' friend,
will find your powers receding.
Frolic while you have your day
of phrases wrought with cunning.
Night is near, so make thy hay,
the clock, alas, is running.

Time was, I was cogent,
and my satire laced with acid.
Now, I’m just im-potent,
and my barb is rendered flaccid.
Once my literary gift
brought kudos from congratulants,
Readers claim they now are miffed,
by my "poetic flatulence."

I was once a wunderkind,
prolific, just like you.
Now a frikking week I spend
to write a lame haiku.
Run and ask your fathers how
my rimes were all the rage,
No-one ever bothers now,
to read this ancient sage.

All the critics changed their minds,
no more was I the best.
How it pains when first you find,
your status "reassessed".
I, who was so lauded, then,
for deftness with a poem,
Now live unapplauded in
the Poets’ Nursing Home.

Every day I take a crack
to write a line or two.
Every night, they roll me back
with urine in my shoe.
Look no more upon me now,
so loathsome and appalling.
Ply me not with pity, how
the mighty so have fallen.

Heed, young bard, so swift of pen,
thy flower days are fleeting!
You, though once the Muses' friend,
will find your powers receding.
Frolic while you have your day
of phrases wrought with cunning.
Night is near, so make thy hay,

the clock, alas, is running.


[This message has been edited by Lightning Bug (edited April 08, 2004).]

[Marion Shore]

A glutton for punishment, I did two: the second using my married name.


Sugo ergo sum

1.
Do you know that Marion Shore?
She has a certain strange allure
That lessens as you know her more.
Do you know that Marion Shore?


2.
Have you made the acquaintance of that Marion Shore Burns?
She likes to eat good chocolate; she spends more than she earns.
She claims to love Great Literature, like odes on Grecian urns,
But admits it's courtroom mysteries for which she truly yearns.
She's quick to form opinions; she very slowly learns,
As she makes her way along this road of twists and turns.
She fondly hopes that come the day her dust to dust returns
Nobody will be moved to say that Marion sure burns!

[Michael Cantor]

I'm Baaack!

How draining to know Michael Cantor,
for - after some opening banter
on his past as a crass galivanter –
it soon becomes clear he’s a granter
of liberal views, a left-slanter
whose ‘tude makes you back off, askanter,
as it dawns that he’s also a chanter
of monorhyme verse, a mad ranter;
and the worst of it all: a recanter.


[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited April 09, 2004).]