There are things a poet shouldn’t do

like fly a plane or fix a shoe

Or hang a picture on the wall

it will either slant, or fall

Any vocation that makes you bored

Accountancy is best ignored

Adopting an extreme yoga position

is at odds with a poetic disposition

Woodwork, tapestry or macrame

Joining the Territorial Army

Playing golf or running a bar

No poet...

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I want the Nobel Prize

The one they give for Peace

I want the Nobel Prize

So give it to me please

It’s not that I’m needy,

Ignorant, profane

It’s just I need an ego massage

Now and again

Give me that fucking prize

It shouldn’t be a drama

You gave it Jimmy Carter, Mandela and Obama

Give me the prize

I’m feeling Presidential

Or I’ll push the nuclear button

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Hush hush

She started it,

With her forefinger placed as a guard in front of her lips.

She forbids my laughter from unraveling,

Commanding me to remain focused.

She tells me about ghosts,

She wants to catch one,

Hoping to have a friend among them.

Hush hush

She starts to speak again,

Still with her forefinger guarding her lips,

A sign to forbid me from laughin...

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I will make an elixir now.
Will you ask me how?
It’s such a simple science!
A bottle of reliance,
Another one with love and peace,
One more of trust the love to increase.
I’ll mix all that with a magic spoon,
My elixir is going to be ready soon.
And…to complete this picture
I’ll sing a song to my mixture.
How will you take this elixir?
Five drops a day will be enough,
As it’s the stron...

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Bah ratcha tas contavalaz

you rase-neflapher’d wagicaud!

Condaver haufin polysnip!

I’ll tell you just where you can stick

your pi-calogin traginine!

You heard me right you doboline.

Go rosigate your dodgisnap

you traginated jollipap!

Xysnerf neflected nillidip!

Take that YOU LILLY ARKABLIP!

COE SNAZE I-CAVIN WAJALLAY!!

BI-ROPKI LISHNIF DOBIKAY!!!

FLANT-AG-LACATE...

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Yes, a mandatory retirement age in Congress

I believe it's time has arrived

We will base the age on FDR's fireside chat

And if you heard the broadcast live

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The earth's temperature will increase 1 degree this century

For climatologists this is the sum of all their fears

It was 15 to 18 degrees hotter on earth for the dinosaurs

Then again, they only lasted 200 million years

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Made arrangements to go away for my anniversary

Which then did render a thought

Does my wife really enjoy vacationing with me

Or am I her last resort

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At age 80 Harrison Ford makes another adventure movie

I guess the storyline is acceptable

Although, Indiana Jones can now only enter caves

If they are handicap accessible

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Georgia, when submitting digital driver's license pictures

Please wear clothes when due

The word mirror should be the only time

We use phrase, rear view

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Displayed on my dentist office wall, "A smile is a whisper of a laugh"

I quietly sit there in intending doom

It is meant to be a soothing thought

While screaming seeping from another room

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Bobi the oldest dog in the world just turned 31

Still his favorite thing to do is to ride in the car

Also loves to bark at children to get off his lawn

And he'll fetch bones if he remembers where they are

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Great Britain has a terrible squirrel problem

Now animal control blames budget cuts

British scientists working on a contraceptive pill

Since trying to neuter them, is just nuts

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Did you know that octopus can run on land like a cat

Now I know people like their taste

But what ablout betting on them in a speed contest

Now that is a real arms race

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The Flat Earth Society is looking to grow in popularity

Althouigh their ideas you may scoff

Going to the ends of the earth to find supporters

Since membership has fallen off

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Unfortunately, there is a large doctor shortage

New medical students, just not there

Especially proctology, gynecology, ears, nose and throat

There are several openings here

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*

He came into my life
with his fuzzy mustache clown smile,
sorry and happy at once
he was running, just running
down that road by himself,
singular --he seemed
bent on self-destruction

then he flashed his look at me
as I was driving home in my new car
at first, I didn't know what he was
it was raining, mucky, with poor visibility
he was matted thick with mud
but I saw those eyes,
...

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I wondered into the British Museum

Accidentally.

I had no business being there.

“It is free admission,”

You reminded me.

“Free?  There cannot be such thing.

When visitors enter artifacts

With their minds,

They carry pieces away

Like a colony of ants.

It is destruction

Invisible to the naked eye.

Envious, greedy visitors

Stealing a precious collection

With ...

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A Gorilla wore a tutu,
while he baked a giant pie,
and watched a bright pink Cuckoo
doing backflips in the sky,
a Monkey stroked a Llama,
a Zebra drove a bus,
while eating three bananas
because one was not enough,
a hippo flipped a pancake,
while he watched tv,
then there came a flying Snake
dancing with a Bee!

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I would not say this heart is hungry
I dare not say this heart is heavy
I only know now, a surer sense of all I want
a clearer description of what will fire
the drive, the rush, the love in me

If we're not going out tonight
then can we just sit and giggle
at each other, at the TV, at the others
can she laugh with me, make fun of me
until we have tears in our eyes, can’t breathe

When ...

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Mother

My son is late to night
A bit drunk
He may be staggering
In the dark.
God please return him back
Insulating  him from thug's attack.

Wife

My husband is late to night
In a bar bewitched by enticing eyes
He may be inviting a tart for a dance!

Please devil throw him to hell
He is enjoying himself
Under a spell!//

About the author

Alem Hailu G/Kristos
In The V...

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Can starlight fathom the distance it has traveled?
Does it count the time in hours, parsecs, even knots?
If I turn on my DVD, will I thunder through the
Cosmos as another wave of noise until the hand
Of time comes to switch off the hearing-aid of God;
And then, even as the webs of interwoven disruption
Traverse the galactic heavens, the only ears to hear them
Will have been deafened by the ...

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So the scents of pre cornflake sex
And post energy drink breath
Pervades the carriage like a squid squadron infusion..

Acrid lemon bleach musk cologne
Tinkly-plink-thud beats effervesce from earphones
She leans arching on the glass pane knackered
Eye-liner Rothko remastered
Her groin marine satyr
Not so lucky a bastard
She receives a sext from another torpedo piece of spam with pecs
Ni...

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I'm rushing below the firmament in a submarine
Pulled up by balloons 
Rocket thrusters won't work in a vacuum
The torrid plasma liquid washes over the viewing screen
And the Hubble telescope cannot anywhere be seen
This periscope doesn't recognise the space handed to us it seems..

Am I floating beneath the epidermis of a prison planet scheme
I fear this is way beyond my theosophical steam
...

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I had to write this poem 
because I thought of this one great line,
What do you think -
will it stand the test of time?

Well, I had to write it down
to deter other poets stealing this idea;
You know lines are clutched from the atmosphere,
Or they fall like apples, spill over like beer.

I had to write this poem,
Because I thought of this one great line;
Like a beat messiah,
My acid m...

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Dear all
Please take this refresher advice as a friendly reminder
Of our protocol for calling in sick
Which is  

In the first instance call the shift supervisor
Inform them why you are unable to attend your shift
Be as clear as possible
The more information the better 
We don't need to hear a blues lyric
Only the truth
This information will of course remain ...

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You're a starship powered on Xanadu nectar;
I'm a pogo stick on coal.
You're a majestic arc of the milky way;
I'm a quark in an unsold cheese roll.
Your eyes launch songbirds and sonnets;
Come fly with me on my crackling comet.

Your hair evokes the erotic scents of perfumed night bazaars;
I exude burning tyres on torched, smashed deisel cars.
Beside you a pulsar is like a sorry matchstic...

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(Inspired by Write Out Loud's discussion thread: Poem of the Week)

So
This week
It can be announced Gong-Ka-Bong
That this poem
Is Poem of the Week
Art 
Love
And a celebration of the communing with our etheric higher sense
Amen
So
Let us join together
And let the blood-letting commence

Observe the cowering bastards sit on the fence
Poets can be a vicious breed
Almost as obnoxiou...

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https://youtu.be/Qov_y6PMrw8

I'm on the Forest Gate Mystery Train,
With my burgled geranium eyes.
I'm on the Forest Gate Mystery Train,
Sighing goldfish clock sardine spies.

Spammed atomic; trolleyed marine,
Frost-buckled arms glow margarine,
Slender dolls slalom offside knees,
Capsules backslide into the stalagmite City.

Tutankhamen consortia;
Shoulder-penguins soggy cadge the dap...

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I am the world's first selfie poem,
Held aloft by the world's first selfie poem stick,
A look-at-me wordsmith pic,
Here I am fluttering beside Tower Bridge.

So here I pose on the left bank;
Here I'm by the Eiffel Tower,
Here I selfie seductively next to the shower.
Ignore the bidet -
Admire my framed parchment hanging above a plastic flower
pot.

Here I am analysed by a poet I barely ...

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The back and forth motion
Will produce a lotion!

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Where did I put my mind?
This is going to drive me nuts!
I retraced my steps, back to front,
Checked my pockets... several times,

Looked around where I'd been outside,
And even rummaged through the garbage!
Where did I put my mind?
This is going to drive me nuts!

I've been everywhere thrice,
Even places I'm sure I never was,
And I've run out of places to search,
And, yet, it's nowhe...

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Forging of firmness in frail frigate

Unision is unlikely to happen

Cranky & cruel words spew at will

Kicking down walls of decency and etiquette

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Those disembodied remnants,
Earthly remains of unknown souls,
are now assembled at my doorstep.
Having piqued my attention,
who are these unwelcome houseguests?
Loved ones or Nordic heroes
who were consumed in funeral pyres?
How old are these molecules
that have been forever scattered
during these past centuries?
Unwanted leftovers of human containers,
eaten by microscopic mites,
nibbl...

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Aissur Teivos ni,

even the punchline is backwards.

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Deep down

inside,

I have

no pride.

Deep down

inside,

I've taken

the slide.

Deep down

inside,

my soul

the demons

 have fried.

Deep down

inside.

Shirley Smothers

I wrote this poem a few years ago. I wrote it to be bad on purpose.

Someone rec...

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Lemon brightness in my eyes

to warmer climes in winter he flies

it’s in his nature to choose his wife

instinctively choosing to mate for life

fidelity causes some men to flinch

they could learn a thing or two from

my finch

Photography by Lisa Milligan

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