Sometimes you just can’t meditate away a series of suckiness. I thought I was alone in wanting to release a little steam in this responsible way; have I ever been happy to be proven wrong! These bloggers are my people.

As such, I had such a difficult time selecting a winner. I laughed so much! It is with a caveat that all were truly good, therefore, that I select the winningest to be:

Short and Not So Sweet, by Sweet, sweet Ruth
Wear your mask

Damn it

Wear your mask

Or I’ll take mine

And stick it up your $$$

A Take on Roses Are Red, by Grandma’s Ramblings
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
If I had a brick,
I would throw it at you.

Congratulations, Ruth and Grandma! You are the funniest poets for the week!

There is a range in this month’s offerings of serious ranting to humorously falsified situations to political tirade. Like I said: fantastic entries. Ruth’s and Grandma’s stood out to me because they were so short and pointed. There was some juxtaposition of my knowing they are both sweet ladies, compared against the not-so-sweet message of the poetry as well. Congratulations, you two!

Don’t skip off before reading the other entrants, though. They are golden:

Snarky snickersnackery, by Doug Jacquier
The time has come, so all us said,

to not talk of many things:

of twits and tweets to ‘mind your beeswax’

of savages and would-be kings

of whether votes are fixed or not

and whether pigs have wings.

 

Be gone, your wretched plague talk

of drinking Kool-Aid with your bleach

of bingeing booze and Netflix

of not going to the beach

of ‘who is that masked stranger?’

No more, I do beseech!

 

Let’s rid ourselves of poverty

Of coherent speech and word

Spike the ‘like’ and ‘whatever’

Treat WTF as if a steaming t**d

Let’s have a pedant as a President,

a VP proud to be a nerd.

 

Fie upon the boomer bashers

Flinging our legacy askew

Blaming us for every ill

From planet to housing queue

End their blameless sanctimony;

Vegans, anyone, on the barbecue?

Untitled, by Bruce
When the officer stopped me for speeding
I explained that he wasn’t being kind.
“Haven’t you read the road rules?” he bleated.
“Hell no,” I said, “can’t you see that I’m blind?”

“Take more care when turning those corners,
Use the brake and slow down a peg.”
I said “Are you stupid or something?
Can’t you see I’ve only one leg?”

The officer was starting to get snarky,
He said “I don’t know what you were thinking.”
“Nah officer,” I said. “Nothing much.
I never think much when I’m drinking.”

So we sat on the side of the road.
He accepted a swig from my flask.
Then he remembered his duty:
“Why aren’t you wearing a mask?”

He gave me a ticket for that
Will self-righteousness never cease?
At least it gives Joseph Robinette a reason
To support defunding the police.

Untitled, by Geoff
I hate it when you’re late
I loathe your clothes
(I detest that vest)
I abhor you for
That girl-next-door
Niceness.
It pisses me when you kisses me
Despite my animosity
Not making you cross at me.
How can my integral animus
Not cause you to make a fuss
When I swear and cuss
At what’s become of us?
It fills me with repugnance
When you say, with me, you want to dance
And despite my ingrained odium
You put me on a podium
And say that for all my revulsion
I’ll still find absolution
If only I’d learn to stop the rhyme
And see that we can be sublime
If we both take the time
To stop the hate
For it’s not too late.
To love.
Nah, bollocks.

After Eden, by Frank Hubeny
Was it the tree? Was it our choice
to be like gods that day?
That fruit, recall, did not agree.
Perhaps it really was the tree
when we did not obey.

Untitled, by Minakshi Khaitam
When the world was struggling in lockdown
When loneliness was taking us down
Sunrise and sunset was the only hope in the lockdown
The chirping of birds and fresh air was a new sound
In this gloomy time, love bloomed for me and cupid landed on earth
My prince had come on the bike to pick me up and take away me from loneliness
His presence added stars and charms to my life
I was struggling yesterday and today I am a happy soul

From the Erotic to the Idiotic, by Arthur Richardson
In starting this I’m feeling somewhat scared.
Ottava Rima is a form that’s been
Used to good effect by poets who’ve fared
Rather better than I have; have been seen
To well succeed by being well prepared,
Writing something comic or obscene
To voice complaints or a criticism
Couched in a caustic witticism.

The master of them all of course was Byron,
Trundling on for sixteen thousand lines,
Mainly, it appears, with a hard-on;
All through Don Juan you can read the signs.
I hear some say though, ‘I do beg your pardon,
Where’s the evidence he so inclines
To write throughout in a sexual fervour.
He’s less like Eros, more of a Minerva,

Goddess of verse, wisdom, strategic warfare.’
I suppose that’s true to a large extent
But what, after all then, do we care
About the character of his true intent
in being so satiric, with such flair?
It’s very unlikely that he would repent,
Retract his underlying eroticisms,
Replacing them with courtly mannerisms.

So, just as Byron sought to undermine
Hypocrisies inherent in his times,
Should we not then, also sharply shine
A piercing light today on similar crimes
Committed not in your name, nor in mine;
Those negligently, cruel paradigms
Of power, designed for the hegemonic,
The devious, deviant, selfishly moronic?

Johnson, Bezos, Bolsonaro, Trump,
To name but four of the perpetrators,
Head a stinking army, nay a rump,
Of psychopathic, snivelling people haters,
Hoovering up the profits, as the slump
Is hitting labourers, the wealth creators,
Driving millions into destitution,
Smothered by a capitalist pollution.

This Ottava Rima effort is pathetic
Compared to Byron’s brilliant Magnum Opus
In which he is poetically athletic,
A swirling cauldron filled with hocus pocus,
Learned, comic, endlessly eclectic,
Never losing pertinence or focus.
Would he were here now with his sharpened claws
To scratch the eyes out of those bloated boors.

But he, of course, was more a Tory than
The politicians and poets he sought to trash.
Raised more a lord than a common man,
His sympathies are, likely, less to clash
With the monsters of our devious plan
Than we who would indict them in a flash.
To use his searing wit, all things Byronic,
Could undermine our aims. Now that’s ironic!

But the plot to use a sharp Ottava Rima
To savage all things oligarchical,
Is pregnant in this adolescent scheme, a
Side swipe at the trad monarchical
(Perhaps I’m just a poor deluded dreamer)
State that’s verging on the farcical.
As Lenin had it, there’s a fine solution:
In Greece, Byron died for Revolution!

Let’s take them one by one, these devious infants:
So Johnson first, designated Boris,
Building, despite himself, a stout resistance
In us common folk who’ve not read Horace
As he has. At least, that’s his insistence;
More a classical flower, than a florist,
Vainglorious popinjay we should require
To shuffle off into his own satire.

A blockheaded buffoon, an unctuous creep,
A man who lied his way to head the Tory
Party, while most of us were fast asleep,
Infighting among ourselves, (another story),
Elected to oversee the State’s upkeep
But acting like the Womble Tobermory.
Yet underneath his foolish, clown-like antic,
Flows a dark and dangerous semantic.

It’s a strain reflected in that Bezos creature,
An exploiter making depredations on
Each worker picking a book, or other feature
To reinforce his empire, Amazon.
‘Do as I command, or I will beat ‘yer!’
They just cannot do right for doing wrong
Inside his evil factories of the cursed.
His form of exploitation is the worst.

Designed to manufacture profits, obscene
By any standard of civil or moral code,
The employment contracts he’s invoked have been
Introduced to undermine, erode
All human dignity at work. We’ve seen
A fetid jubilation, a la mode,
Among the tax avoiding oligarchy
Celebrating his malign malarky.

So what of Bolsonaro? What a jerk!
A fascist placeman, product of a coup
Displacing all the socialising work
Done to favour those, like me and you
Who don’t own either Jaguar or Merc,
In the favelas. So we ask, just who
Will, one day, bring this criminal to trial,
Wiping off his vile and hideous smile?

Of course, the situation in Brazil
Is mirrored in those South American states,
Where humanising work, used to instil
Just distribution, is overturned. The fate
Of millions of the poor, drowned in the swill
Produced by CIA-backed gangster mates
Of US President (The Gangster) Trump,
That preening, self-regarding Heffalump.

Trump as President, you’d hardly believe it!
Yet perhaps the Yanks really do deserve ‘im.
Not those, of course, those that would retrieve it
But all the racists, those that would preserve ‘im
to mouth the hatred as they do conceive it.
Most of us, it’s true, would rather swerve ‘im,
Stoutly chuck him into History’s litter.
(At the risk of sounding satisfyingly bitter!)

But I’m justly sad that such could be elected,
Whose message is crude, insanely autocratic.
Instead of tending to those who should be protected,
He’d rather promote the semi-automatic.
Let’s hope there’ll soon be sense, he’s deselected
And we see the last of this phoney aristocratic,
No good piece of putrefying shit.
(I hope I haven’t overstated it!)

I’ll now conclude this Italian form of verse;
I do not have the stamina of a Byron.
I know it’s bad but it could get much worse,
Won’t earn me any pension to retire on!
Be fearful, though, you despots, you who curse
Humanity: you will feel the iron
In our depleted souls eventually.
You’ll be overthrown and we’ll be free.

A Yorksher Rant, by Hobbo
Tha’ mun think that, am med o’brass
Well, shove it up yer Khyber Pass
Fifty bob fer chips wi’ scraps
I dunt pay that fer good flat caps!

Tha’ thieving sod, tha’ll rob me blind
‘all take me stick, ‘ave ‘alf a mind
To stick it where the sun don’t shine
Tha’ robbin’ git, tha’ greedy swine.

I’m an O.A.P tha’ knows
I wotchit, where me money goes
So, tha’ can keep thee chips, instead
‘all mek do wi’ some drippin’ bread.

Translation
You may think that I have lots of money
Well, you can put that money in your bottom
£2.50 for french fries with trimmings
It costs me less for decent headgear.

You are a thief who is prepared to scam me
I am inclined to take my walking cane
And put it in a painful place
you robbing villain, you greedy scoundrel.

You know I’m an old age pensioner
And I have to be prudent with money
So you keep your chips for yourself, whilst I
Will have some bread spread liberally with pork fat.

I No Longer Care, by Joanne Fisher
There are certain bloggers
who want you to look at their posts
but under no circumstances will they
sully their own eyes by looking at yours

I believe in mutual support
but no one else seems to

I go out of my way to
read people’s posts
but the favour is not returned

So why should I care anymore?
When I have almost a thousand
followers but less than fifty
bothering to read what I write?
Why should I bother reading my
WordPress feed every night
when no one else seems to?
I could be doing something else.

When you believe in
mutual support and
no one else does,
it really sucks. WordPress
sucks.

Untitled, by bereavedandbeingasingleparent
Brexit completely messed up

Government has gone corrupt

–

Contracts given to party donors

Paid for by bigger bills for homeowners

–

100000 covid deaths

They couldn’t even care less

–

A nation scared forever

No virus tracing whatsoever

–

Care Homes lambs to the slaughter

Country becoming an second rate backwater

–

School system in utter disarray

While Johnson moans about his own pay

–

Massive backlogs at the ferry ports

Backing Ministers subject to damming bullying reports

–

Empty supermarkets shelves

Ministers looking after themselves

–

U turn after U turn after U turn

Economy in a massive downturn

–

Leaders downing the finest wine

Yet free school meals must be declined

–

Desperately trying to remove worker rights

Refusing to make safe dangerous high rise sites

–

All this just in one year of Johnson being in charge

A dangerous dishonest charlatan at large

So before he gets on with having another affair

Will someone please comb this numpties hair.

Cognitive Assonance, by Sudrakarma
The mental gymnastics required for those leaps
must be exhausting; The Hill was too steep.
Projecting your crimes unto every other
with a straight face you’d sell-out your mother
before you’d begin to point at yourself;
that precious pride should be put on a shelf,
wrapped in the flag that you desecrated,
with the constitution you once advocated.
No, you’re not the patriot you once pretended;
your line of credit’s been over-extended.
The amount of denial and projection required
to maintain positions in which you are mired,
are swirling with madness into the commode.
I’m really surprised
your head
doesn’t
explode.

Firing Up, by Obbverse
As far as finances go
I’m in a proper pickle,
My once flush cash flow
Has dribbled to a trickle.

The bills wash endlessly in,
Only my heart goes out,
My means are paper thin,
My prayers never more devout.

No assets left to seize,
All my boom’s gone bust,
I’m down on my knees,
Not one ‘In God We Trust.’

Pacing the floor by the door,
Going postal for that relief cheque,
To pay off Bill’s Convenience Store
Before he wrings my scrawny neck.

I gather together every letter
In shivering mittened hands;
One time a real go-getter,
Now hold only final demands.

Grab the largest pot
In the stone cold kitchen,
Dump in the miserable lot,
Got troubles? I’ll pitch in.

All those weighty dispatches,
Gone in a stroke
Thanks to Safety matches
Hello, hellfire sulphur and smoke.

…The letters dutifully brought
By the conscientious postman
Though warm, were too short,
More a flash in the pan.

Will Bill come by torchlight,
Say ‘200 bucks or go to jail?’
Cold comfort on a cold night?
‘Bill, bring a Molotov cocktail.’

Thank You Governor Evers, by Dumbestblogger
I needed a new car, so I bought one
That was the easy part
I went to get a title, like an old fart
And they said, “hey, don’t get smart!”
“Here’s a special COVID chart.
on this side is the license part,
And over here the title part
As you can see, it isn’t smart
To breathe air and transfer titles at the same time.”
Well that’s dark
It’s not like I came here on a lark
Am I the first person to come here and park
Thinking that help would be mine?
Maybe so
Fifteen minutes later
And I’m staring at paper
With a URL
Near as I could tell
the solution to this entire caper
Oh, wait. We’re talking about the government
Their websites don’t work
I love being legally obligated to use malfunctioning technology to print off a piece of paper that I then need to send to Madison through the post office
I feel so much safer
I want just want to write on the freaking paper in the first place
Is that too much to ask?

Untitled, by Deb Whittam
You know, I ain’t usually one for following the rules,

But sometimes, just sometimes,

They’re there for a reason, you fools.
Just take roundabouts my friends,

They’re designed to keep the traffic flowing,

Now let’s pause here, you do comprehend?
The other lanes clear, my ignorant friend,

This is your chance to hop on and go,

Before you send me around the bend.
Too dangerous you think and sit still,

You ain’t seen anything close to danger yet,

I’m going to be coming in for the kill.
Exactly where did you get your license again?

Wasn’t a cereal box, was it?

Sorry let me make amends.
You’ve sat there an eon and let me stew,

That, you clodhopping lout it a fatal mistake

Get out of my way, grandma’s coming through

Africa, a Parody, By Rawgod
[Verse 1]

Trump wanted to win an award so bad

He’d even take one that he knows he never earned he’s such an ass

And he’ll travel anywhere to get it

He took a call 12:30 at night

They said he’d won a big award from a country he never heard of

They even said they’d pay his way there

He never stopped to read the fine print

He’d have to travel with peasants and their animals

The trip would take a couple of days

But the prize was waiting there for him

It didn’t take much to attract him there

And he had no idea that the call was a fake

He never even stopped to pack a bag

He ran all the way to the station

[Chorus]

Trump took the train down through Africa

The shithole countries wouldn’t let him fly in

They wanted to show him they were just as human

As the people in America who exploited them

[Verse 2]

The great man cried out in the night

As he grew restless waiting to be given his brass trophy

He knew the prize was his birthright

As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti

He sought to cure his ego’s need

Frightened now that this was just a hoax

[Chorus]

Trump took the train down through Africa

The shithole countries wouldn’t let him fly in

They wanted to show him they were just as human

As the people in America who exploited them

[Bridge]

Hurry up man you know it’s waiting there for you

Now you’re taking the train down through Africa

Riding with the peasants and their pigs

You even had to shit with your ass hanging out the door

And no T.P. to even clean your fat ass

[Chorus]

Trump took the train down through Africa

The shithole countries would not let him fly in

They wanted to show him they were just as human

As the people of America who exploited them.

Trump took the train down through Africa…

[Etc. Repeat to fade. ]

—–

Stick around a little later for the next month’s prompt!

Ruth and Barbara, here’s a badge for you to use on your site. Congratulations, again!

©2021 The poets, and their respective works