Potiphar's Wife & other whimsies

Potiphar's wife the young Joseph did want/and so all her wiles before him did she flaunt/But Joseph resisted and her plans did fail/so in hellish fury she cast him in jail/Virtue is often rewarded that way/so only the brave with much godliness play. 

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the day is sold to rain/the rain that never ceases/the kind of rain, in fact/that gives my forehead creases/as if the sun a myth/had never showed its faces/to any single man/or to the human races/but I will persevere/in thinking sunlight loyal/that it will soon come back/and my depression spoil.

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the last poem is finished/my life's work complete/I've jumped all the hurdles/and stymied defeat/now I lay back/with my laurels and chips/collecting rewards/and concocting new dips.

Infant, you fill up that diaper so fast & other whimsies.

 

Infant, you fill up the diapers so fast/I don't see how mommy much longer can last/There is no delay tween the mouth and the bum/You mulch it right down to the very last crumb/Oh dear, now your mother has a look in her eye/that means it's MY turn to give changing a try!

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falling asleep at the wheel of a car/will carry the driver not too very far/a snooze going eighty is always a thrill/until there's a corpse in the wormy soil chill/so get lots of rest e'er you step on the gas/or angels will bring you a nice boarding pass.

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People make jokes about Adam and Eve/I wish from such nonsense we'd get a reprieve/Don't they deserve peace and quiet, dear hearts/with nothing but fig leaves to cover their parts?

The son of his old age

 

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.

Genesis 37:3.

When a man begins to age/all his children he will gauge/Those who please him best will rise/while the others get green eyes/It's not fair or very smart/and often breaks the brittle heart.

 

The Elevator Man & other whimsies

 

The elevator man?

In New York City maybe.

Anywhere else -- gone, baby.

Who's hiring for the posish?

Not even a masochist's wish!

I'd rather drive a fish van.

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I want to write something morose.

Without any hope or glucose.

But damned if I know

how to snuff out the glow

of my playfulness grandiose.

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Of my birth I've never written.

Of my death I'm much much more smitten.

Coming out of the womb

can't compare with the tomb.

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No harm would I be

to lizard or bee.

No malice bear I

for even jai alai.

But should they cause emesis

I would be their nemesis. 

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"Fahad Shah, who writes for The Christian Science Monitor from Kashmir, India, was detained for publishing "anti-national" content." 

Many countries nowadays/put their writers through a maze/If you don't jump through the hoops/you will be chased by some troops/locked up in a dungeon cell/then rot away and not raise hell.

Esau ran to meet him

 "And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept."

Genesis 33:4

Esau and Jacob were kin/They parted in anger and sin/When many years passed/they met at long last/Forgotten was all their chagrin.

If I come back a dog I'll bark

 

If I come back a dog I'll bark

at foolish pigeons in the park

But if a cat is Vishnu's will,

I'll sit upon a windowsill.

A spider, now, might be a gas --

but probably I'll be an ass . . . 

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I'm of that ancient order that got letters in the mail.

A postcard from the tropics did intrigue me without fail.

A blurry shot so overblown the colors ran amok.

I've never got an email yet that left me thunderstruck.

Eroded to a nubbin of its former zip and glory,

the postcard's now a relic, positively dinosaury.

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The wind of a book fills your sails, matey.

It takes you to lands both enchanted and fatey.

Feel that firm heft and the gravitas, lubber.

Then go to your mess of fried eel and whale blubber.

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I have dreamed of automats;

eating with fedora hats.

Turning knobs and using nickels

for real pie and maybe pickles.

But in the Midwest as a lad

the White Castle was all I had

Welcome

 

Here's your diaper.

Here's your rattle.

Welcome to the mortal battle.

Here's a paycheck,

and a mate.

Try to buy some real estate.

Here's the doctor.

Here's some cancer.

Goodbye. Without any answer.

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The Goat smells of a nightmare glade

where piss is sold as lemonade.

It's flesh is eaten by exotics

who then require antibiotics.

The Couch is often slept upon

from late at night to early dawn.

And that's because when couples fight

one of them sleeps there at night!

The Rug is often underfoot,

where it will trap both dust and soot.

Remove it and your floor will dull

with dirt and grease and walnut hull.

So tell your rug you love it well,

and water it with muscatel. 

I wonder where the papers went?

 

I wonder where the papers went/that once our cityscape did scent?

The tatters scampering about/their headlines throbbing like the gout.

Want ads or a baseball score/their inky smell is now no more.

We're online, and so paper-free/but worried still of World War Three.

The printing presses silent sit/Reporters think their throat is slit.

And if you want to wrap some fish/there's only plastic bags -- oh ish!

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this gourd of ours/empty as it seems

is filled with love and pain and dreams.

so locusts saw/and birds migrate;

and worldly men soon abdicate.

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at my desk I spent the day;

writing nothing, by the way.

then a walk I took outside

in the chilling eventide.

All my thoughts were so sublime

I didn't see the bus in time . . . 

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The sin of boredom I possess;

I covet it with mindlessness.

Not to care, or think, or pray --

to claim how hollow is each day.

I figure that my boredom means

I'm more refined than collard greens.

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There's an old wind which blows

that nobody knows --

It comes now and then

over mountain and fen 

to tickle the head

and put babies to bed.

And when it has gone

there is much more to dawn.

Genesis 29:25. Wherefore then hast thou beguiled me?

 "And it came to pass, that in the morning, behold, it was Leah: and he said to Laban, What is this thou hast done unto me? did not I serve with thee for Rachel? wherefore then hast thou beguiled me?"

Genesis 29:25.

In the Bible Jacob thought/Rachel's body he had bought/with his labor, seven years/of herding sheep and plying shears/Wily Laban gave instead/Leah to his marriage bed/So don't complain if marriage seem/something like a bad regime.

They wearied themselves to find the door

 

"And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door."

Genesis 19:11

Blindness smites the mighty men/who knock upon our door/who only want to bring to us/oblivion and war/Our God has set their bounds indeed/They'll weary out their days/vainly searching for relief/from setbacks and delays!