Half-Random Rhymes
Steve Tiffany
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2009 Steve Tiffany
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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These poems were created using the writing toy Icon Poet, which accounts for the "half-random" of the title. Writing with Icon Poet, one supplies structure by clicking on a grid of word categories. Click on a category, and the actual word that appears in the text window is chosen by randomness. It can be replaced by re-clicking the same category, or accepted by moving on to a new category. Word by unlikely word, a poem takes shape.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cornered like a bread thief
in an oven deep and warm
you're milking every minute
exhibiting your form
glamorous and streetwise
sincerely rich and thin
naturally your leisure
reaches past the skin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Giant snails
grow giant tails
and glide ahead of
giant trails...
of slime.
You cling to rhyme
on account of the time
you traveled the trail
of a giant snail.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jauntily we cruise the zoo
giving donkey rides to who?
or should I say we cruise and zoom,
giving donkey rides to whom?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On their holiday in the Bahamas,
the women who run with the llamas
left bystanders staring
by frequently wearing
substantially lurid pajamas.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Upstairs at the Crow and Larch
colorful and grand with starch,
hunters throw their glory feast
having caught the rampant beast
which these many years eluded
those whose hot pursuit denuded
countryside for miles around
now they'll eat him by the pound.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's another scary circus, here in Vladivostok town
where the bottles chase the drinking men all up the hall and down
where the doctors calmly watch the room with dollars in their eyes
and Naomi's saucy beauty hides her ragged, ready lies.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EASTER
To the Easter Rabbit, it's a serious game
deciding which patches of foliage warrant
his challenging eggs, none painted the same
he's hiding delights for the oncoming torrent
of small keen-eyed girls and springy-shoed boys
they're chasing from cupboard to garden to field
filling their baskets and dropping their poise
in the search for the spots where the eggs are revealed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Break the test tubes, sell the maps
drop your feelings in the hubcaps
Life is sour and flaws extreme
now that Ivy's met her dream
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Have a gimmicky consciousness, key to the guys
that challenge your laughter, admire your disguise,
and offer you frequent and regular testing
to bring out your instincts toward homing and nesting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That distant oblivious lady
in her youth was decidedly shady
with instincts most treacherous
from liaisons most lecherous
she would send every conquest to Haiti.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Decline and fall like Western Civ
believe in things and money
or chuck the terms by which you live
and dig the changes, honey.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A serious dancer called Leon
was a jumper through bubbles of neon
with a jug on each finger
he was a dead ringer
for someone we'd scatter debris on
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jug of water, big and blue
patched with skin and crazy glue.
How it broke, I have no clue
unless some lively kangaroo
drove up in a Subaru
and didn't watch the way he threw
his map of Greater Baraboo —
I just imagine how it flew
and busted that poor jug in two.
That's what I think, how 'bout you?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Early in the concert, dragging through the hall
Buster and Naomi come defending one and all
from images of generations roughened by excess
Who wrote these songs of decadence, and under what duress?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You've earned your own key to variety school
you've touched us with brilliance and heart
still, you are only a bureaucrat's tool
when certainty drags away art.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Too modern a child to keep quiet,
brought up on an all-sugar diet,
the boy's form of leisure
resembled a seizure;
at day care he touched off a riot.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We smugly moral monsters say
it's right to send the king away
to evil lands for looking at a dancer
provided she's so languorous
her lurid motions anger us
and form a question none of us can answer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The sensitive secret detective
had faith in the wholly subjective
while dragging the truth out
he'd leave the vermouth out
and make your martini defective.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Secrets and errors Naomi had blocked —
she's guilty of shallow devotion —
when into a recent rebellion she walked
and felt her assistant's emotion.
Against anonymity's essence, he said,
he would gather the days of his youth
and carry the bubble of knowledge ahead
and send up the banner of truth.
His temperament passionate, kind of like mine
in my youth, you'll recall if you know me
he thinks there's a glory to drawing the line...
but why take it out on Naomi?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bowl me over, rough and lively
bend my faith and temperament
eat the box of moments nicely
moments comfortably misspent
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Neither vinegar nor turpentine
could get this gravy out,"
said Naomi of a stain upon her vest
"but the form is strongly serpentine...
Organic? there's no doubt.
Let the gravy style spill over to the rest!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
According to rugged assistants
to debutantes in The Resistance,
the center will scatter
though what does it matter
when aliens mass in the distance?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Than Ivy no one's more rambunctious,
professionals agree,
in tones so sensitive and unctuous
with sober certainty
she heats the room like real fire
she method acts so deep
they're challenged by their own desire
and the learning curve is steep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4TH OF JULY
Today is the wildest festival of fire
air-style flowers hanging so much higher
awe-regarding experts glowing from applause
talent with a match must be digging ooohs and ahhhs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beautiful controller, your
hair is in a roller, for
you're going with a bowler
to the wedding of a cop.
You eye a large flat noodle, in
your sweater with its poodle, when
the whole kit and kaboodle
comes a-crashing to a stop.
A rosy air of glory, how
that uncle told a story! Now
the place seems hunky-dory
for the sacred Special Op.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Little Wanda Plaster-Caster
gathered bowls of stuff for Master
gathered knobs and lucky rocks
gathered shoes and sucky socks
worked the beach from tide to tide
year to year, and then she died.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The instinct toward watching your mileage
can decline when your trailer of silage
exhibiting growth
and fragility both,
starts veering your truck off a high ledge.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Caught on tape for all to see
diving from the balcony...
Must you catch your brother's hand,
drag him past the rafters, and
exercise your right to drop
ice cubes as you belly flop
in a pool of white champagne,
earning everyone's disdain?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The silvery glasses of Wanda
disappeared in the back of her Honda
every inch she has scoured
but her specs were devoured
by Koko, her wild Anaconda.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When landing in a hopeful dell
catch the gaze of Honest Nell
ask for information tawdry
promise it to Wistful Audrey
scatter bread down by the bridge
to call the birds for Simple Midge.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disjointedly tugging her jumper
Naomi ad-libbed from the bumper
of her pink eighteen-wheeler
that his faith might seem realer
if the Reverend would quit trying to hump her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kimono my house, serious girl
work out on my Tilt-a-Whirl
make your quiet circulation
catch an exercise vacation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Because of their youthful propensity
toward serious solid immensity,
at dinner they scattered
and would, when it mattered,
diet with passionate intensity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fire keeps emerging
from the most metallic features
of the crocodile robots'
green regard.
If you'd told me we'd be roasted
by some inorganic creatures
we'd have held the barbecue
out in the yard.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
His fall felt like a rock or two
was hidden in his sock and you
were shrieking like a cockatoo
that's had too much excitement.
He caught up with infinity
and bought in to divinity
within the numb vicinity
of gravity's indictment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cops and monsters work the city,
looking scary, blue and strong
cost us all much time and pity
set up schools for right and wrong
break down bridges over muddy
pools where fatal burdens drop
nonetheless they're buddy-buddy
reckless monster, brutal cop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Obliviously eating every onion wisp in sight,
Naomi fires off a steamy note
to the lawyers of the neighborhood establishing the right
of their servants to decline the right to vote.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meat, my boy, declines all offers
hangs by hooks and fills your coffers
up with silver, if you gather
wasted scraps, but if you'd rather
drop all that, pursue your studies
careers in meat go to your buddies.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The kimono guy bends vegetables within his inner closet
While watching him on video, the therapist may pause it
where an onion at the tearing point regards its strange tormentor
Is this therapist at work, or just some sicko video renter?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Because there's earth beneath his ears
and sand between his toes,
the crocodile will shed no tears,
imaginary clothes,
or habits held too easily
by one so big and deadly
You bring his meal in queasily —
his favorite: Three-Being Medley.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The thieves and leaves are ashen
as the women and the dwarves
who remember youthful passion
in their rooms above the wharves
Since their faith has been forgotten
like an anvil gone to rust
and their temperament grown rotten
they've found nobody to trust.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kitchen anesthetic masks an inner discontent
that the healthy sober bureaucrats suspect
from our creepy style of housekeeping, where spoons and forks get bent
like the moral institutions we reject.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When the plastic books go hiding
and your talent goes to waste
and you're selling vinyl siding
to the witches eating paste
then it's circus day for dancers
in their treacherous pink shoes
though they question your enhancers
and they shout the mercy blues.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sleepy Earth sits small and wet
never dreams it's someone's pet
in the heavens far away
the owner shouts, "It's time to play!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Place mushrooms in a copper bowl
and check the beer for rocks
the meat gets hung from yonder pole
to roughly shadow box
for tenderness and seasoning
before you light the grill
the neighbors heard your reasoning
and picnicked on the hill.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Swamping us under with treacherous art,
the masters of image stand distant
from that which they sell us at MegaLoMart
where common good taste's non-existent.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pretty fancy, magazine men
glowing red with feeling
busted in the soup tureen, when
gazes caught you stealing
meat and noodles served with class
to those who dine politely
not for you who show a pass
and get ejected nightly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An asthmatic but secretive sailor
has traveled the world in a mailer
he furthered the stealth mood
by eating just health food
and not laughing through his inhaler.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THANKSGIVING
A platter of bird flesh, a simple libation
are reasons I may acquiesce
but the cranberry cylinder's red corrugation
is key to Thanksgiving success.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Apparently nothing magnetic
would stick to the dancer's prosthetic
"The solution, I feel,
is an upgrade to steel."
After that, things were way copacetic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brawling with some pupils, the shrewd substitute now reaches
for the stun gun so essential to the style by which he teaches.
Though the watered-down curriculum impedes the task he's chosen,
no compasses or chem labs means less injury, explosion.
In the corner, when the twitching stops, the students snarl and slaver —
Thank God they make the parents sign a seventeen-page waiver.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beneath your frozen dollar bills,
it all comes down to reckless thrills
like entering a deadly pool
of fire on your way to school
with patchy tires while driving fast —
quit acting out my sordid past!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aside from his special devotion
to Band-Aids and calamine lotion,
the child who was bitten
was certainly smitten
with holler-based forms of emotion.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Feeling older, Roscoe said,
emerges as a song
one you bought on 8-track
when "enchantment" was too strong
a word to use for high school hops
though "exercise" came close
"in futility," adds Roscoe —
he's always so morose.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Come downstairs and eat some stuff
eighty pounds is not enough
to weigh when you are six foot eight
so come downstairs and clean your plate.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Muddy blue hair and a dinner balloon
make Wanda a fashion magician.
Offered approval for changing her tune,
she yields to the deadly beautician
and lets her establish a special equation
to wiggle a cork of champagne
through her pink flesh like an open invasion —
Variety matters, not pain.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Upstairs, downstairs, all around the school
wherefore, therefore, bending every rule
tearing up the dance floor, tearing down your mind
throwing off the burden of a talent too refined
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Where test tubes and deep curiosity
breed reptiles of fatal ferocity
the snake-handlers act
with twice as much tact
then sudden substantial velocity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bowling for mushrooms, affection and bread
Naomi lets everything go to her head
exceptions are logic and sometimes champagne
she's partial to parties that open her brain.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With her bottle of whisky besotted,
the ESPN camera spotted
a gymnastics star
at an uneven bar
exceeding her timeframe allotted.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHRISTMAS
Joy to the wombat
forget about combat
and hide the map to doom
Let every wispy girl
shimmy, jump and twirl
and not hide in her room
and not hide in her room
and no-o-o-o-o-ot hide in her room.