Match, match forward and go, you heroic sons of America
Reconnoiter into the strongholds of boko haram,
And restore our captive girls from the foul  custody,
Lawlessly held hostage by the connoisseurs of terror,
Go on and recover poor souls from ribald of religion
Impishly created by Moslem from the satanic verses,
Regulating foray of terror on the poor of the poor
******, mahyeming, looting and executing massacres,
Match on and on yee angels of democracy,
Don’t stop in any haste or in any wonder,
To help in the sham flabbergastations,
About  the  Igbos who fought the Biafra,
And the Yorubas who federally defended,
Under the aegis of Obasanjo the Sandhurst
General, where are they all to save the girls
Of Nigeria from the Islamist terror
Excuted by  boko haram the handmaid of evil.

~for Marion~

all poets are junkyard scavenger connoisseurs

who wear suits to Manhattan faculty afternoon tea parties,

broken-in jeans to Brooklyn midnite poetry slams,

regalers, tall tale storytellers, subway words pickpockets

of the  extra-ordinary,

claiming innovations but from all saints stolen,

insights inside other's waste,

refusing to acknowledge the true owner's title

by fusing other's refuse.

the original recyclers,

junkyard dog liars,

willful sufferers of the plague of overhearing,

exceptional excerpters of the gems of coal dust noise,

"Connoisseur of old thoughts
Bound in new gilt bindings"*


them's me.


~

12:37am may eighth

Have we all become mere automata
guided by the ring of pings and notifs?
The spray of lather from a sea of data
carrying with it wrung celebrity whiffs
have stung us with a certain aphasia...

The written thought was a lifetime ago
long abandoned by the times and all--
where once there was soundness to follow
nonsense amassed like a rising cymbal
whose crash sent reason to the gallows.

The news of the day presents a delectable entree
of a hodgepodge of this, that, and nothing much.
Wherefore we find our tongues compelled to say
something about the aftertaste or to prejudge
as if we were connoisseurs--it must've hid faraway.

Are we perhaps amusing ourselves to death?
I am by no means a Luddite to such a degree,
but I believe we have bombarded and blessed
ourselves a little too much to see...
only time will tell us reason's final breath.

We're very much alike.

Poetry is our inspiration,
we were born writers.
People call us BBQ sauce snobs
wine connoisseurs
and brothers.

But he likes to dance
at night--
in the headlights
when the air pierces the skin.
His deep dark pockets
are an oblivion of cigarettes
and full minis of Jack.
Remind's me of Harpo.

He walks like a snake slithers--
body swaying
and a gleaming mischievous twinkle
in his eye.

We both enjoy crisp, autumn days,
but he prefers them cloudy--
dark.
He says it brings out the color
in the reds and orange leaves jumping off the trees to twist in the breeze.
Listening to stand-up is our solace,
though he says Hicks is god.
I say Carlin

His shadow reminds me of a demon--
the long lost son of Medusa.  

He's not afraid to say what he thinks,
cause he knows he's right.
Sometimes I believe him--
he speaks with such nonchalant confidence.
There's always a needle on his words
swiftly flitting and flickering
like a flame he's flicking off his tongue.
And if his words hurt breaking the skin?
"Don't be such a *****" he'll snarl
before turning the charm back on
with a giggle and ironic wink.

He likes to collect
the faults in others
cause his thinks his **** don't stink.
He keeps reminding me of mine.
He enjoys needling
people.

We've known each other
for a long while.
Seems like longer....
but that's cause my roommate is me.

I once scurried through a jungle of tomes
From the languid turf of hazy hagglers
To the esoteric sphere of cryptic connoisseurs
The jagged rhythm pulsating with a staccato of pebbles
Not a placid clime but a wonky wilderness
Where your eyes rove for honey of rising cadence
Only to decelerate
From an alien territory to a corny scenery
The voyage of discovery must continue...
As sojourners of change


Onuchi Mark © 2010

I did not know that poetry has rules.
‘Tis not a craft for ordinary fools.
Those, that form and meter never master,
Are ever doomed; they are the poetasters.
As opera singers, out of tune, do make
Discerning listeners do a double-take,
And chefs, who sprinkle salt instead of sweet,
Serve meals that connoisseurs would never eat;
A writer with a wretched poet’s curse
Will never craft a great Heroic Verse.

So as I count my syllables and feet,
And wonder if my metaphors will meet,
I pray that hypermetrics are okay,
(For I have used a few of them today,)
I’ll leave the verdict, reader, up to you,
Affirm that to my mission, I’ve been true,
Or if the ending to my verse bathetic
Christen me a poet most pathetic.
Heroic Lines in Couplets, I intended;
Judge me, reader, now this verse has ended.

Phil Lindsey 12/24/15

Huddled within boundaries highlighted by the craftier. Stubbornly, yet unwillingly willing, escorted to the connoisseurs of morality. Structured, consistent, but reembodied into randomness, the more the merrier.
Spoiled, unripened, famished and fat.
Pleasant, fresh, fit, chubby and… adolescent.
In the name of manipulation, and its ***** messengers, we honour the catalogued pious. To Venus; the untrue, the shameful, the blasphemous. We serve peace and love, abandon the lies of Gods, join your cherished sisters below.

Why is it that drinkers of wine

All fancy themselves connoisseurs;

As they sniff, swirl, sip and spit-

They’re all Robert Parkers I’m sure.


They talk about bouquet and fragrance,

hints of chocolate they find in the wine.

I sip on the wine and I’m puzzled

as I never find chocolate in mine.



My brother’s a beer connoisseur

Pour ten different beers in good light.

Though he may drink them all to be sure,

He distinguishes each upon sight



“There are different shadings of gold

and some give you more head than others.”

-Who would ever imagine that beer

would have something in common with lovers.



So go have your new Beaujolais

You Francophile drinkers of wine

I’m sure Orson Welles would have told you

They’re selling it way before time.



Back at the bar named McCullagh’s

They’re playing pool in the back room

Uncle Jimmy is schooling some suckers

It happens once in a blue moon.

-from Venice: a tipsy gentleman
bursts into song for his escort girl

If I only could admire your feet, forever,
I would pray to live on
and live on - pray, forever.

     I know I am not the only one.
     So glad to follow this tranquil lot,
     these fine and happy admirers,
     who bow to pay your offertory.

To join this choir,
these humble connoisseurs
who yield to your glory.

     I stumbled, hit the bottom,
     today lost all that I possessed.
     My head, my mind, my soul -
     so incredibly clear now,
     ready to follow, eager to bow
     for the urge of my heart.

To join this song,
sung in eloquent silence,
turning to the mystery of your feet.

     This moment is eternity,
     far away my petty desires.
     It is perfect time, the only time,
     never started, never ends.

If I only could admire your feet, forever,
I would pray to live on
and live on - pray, forever.

     No sound, no sight, no smell, no taste -
     this channel opened in my heart.
     No boat, no lapping waves,
     no misty vapours shining in the night -
     just the clarity of clarity:
     a foothold for us all.

Inspired by Allen Ginsberg’s Love Returned.

Tonight, there will be no merging onto
The wireless info web highway-
She returns, with smiles,
From thousands of miles,
To honor unresolved promise.
No longer anonymous, humming
My love song to someone in particular.

I weave my way across the margins,
Through a web of puddles and pebbles,
As puzzle pieces of sensual treble resonate,
Drizzle amiably down on my burgundy umbrella.

And she evolves, a silent tempest
That swells in the warmth of the night.

Is it the unaffected loyalty,
Or the sweetness of her smell?
The strength of her autonomy,
Or the completeness of our honesty?

As we peel away protective layers,
I hope that we remain,
Two connoisseurs of romance,
Who continue to slow dance.

Staying learned and childlike,
Earnest and mild, like
Students of truth.
From the thoughtful naiveté
Of maturing youth,
I offer my blessings to her.

It’s fitting that she, lovely
As a coveted Viyella,
Seems free of material expectations,
Or ring-around-the-rosy words.

So all that’s left to do-
Make our cozy escape, and find rest
Inside this departing Acela.
Calmed by the self-propelled motion
Of our northbound locomotive,
I consider a future inside fifty-two sunsets,
And finally set my sights upon
A sound, stone bridge.

It’s as though her auburn words,
Along with the acute angles of her smile,
Are anticipating my every beat.

I wonder if she knows that
Her eyes, a mélange of the
Steel blue Merrimack, below
A tall granite overpass, loom
Over these familiar train tracks,
A painted Methuen sunset.

Vasili Kandinsky, Sally Rand & the Bauhaus
were way out ahead of their times,
the Beatles & Stones were retro then & avant-garde now---
**** is instantly retro;
not just any music is avant-garde but any naked woman
is no matter what she does or is currently doing,
Bettie Page & Marilyn Monroe,
Virginia Woolf even in their graves
Are ahead of their times;
Marquis de Sade & Masoch avant-garde;
Jean Genet retro---Blaze Starr avant-garde,
Lili St. Cyr modern & retro---Paul Klee avant-garde,
Marilyn Monroe both Modern & retro (A Gibson girl reborn---Elmer Batters a throwback w/ a camera---
To Diamond Jim Brady he & Lillian Russell were avant-garde---one day we will all be rich & naked,
dripping w/ jewels & connoisseurs)
Sol Lewitt retro; Judy O’Day modern,
To the DPRK, Kpop is avant-garde---
No one called William S. Burroughs a Modernist---
Not to his face anyway, nor Hunter S. Thompson
but the critics did call Thomas Wolfe a Modernist
& avant-garde---F. Scott Fitzgerald heralding a new age
that passed away w/ Zelda in the madhouse inferno
& Scott trying to write screenplays
but movies were retro by the 30s
& the avant-garde already history---
Modernism vanishing decades later w/ Basquiat
& Warhol & Schnabel & Fischl et al---
Martha Graham was Modern, Isadora  retro
all the way back to ancient Greece naked & barefoot---
Robots get smaller & put u out of a job,
yet so efficient fembots become a reality---
Putting women out of work in a world
where no one needs strippers---
living in a technological delusion w/ the illusion of religion
confusing their imploded minds---
The world will always need stripper retro,
modern, avant-garde & beyond
from the beginning to the end of all time,
in the Crazy Horse multiverse,
When no one needs prostitutes
only drugs will do---drugs & technology, global psychedelia,
Nationalism, racism & violence are all so retro;
Modernism has simply ceased to exist
& the avant-garde has yet to be---
Women would dance naked for drunken men---
Not anymore---now it’s fembots playing virtual games
w/ video ******
Toulouse Lautrec & Eugene O’Neill
were avant-garde but not modernists---
Dita Von Teese is postmodern as am I
& Lady Gaga & Bettie Page & Blaze Starr to this day---
Let she who is w/o sin cast the first stone
at the ghost of go-go---
No one ever complained
about an old-fashioned cooch show
except the girls that were in it
although they loved it & would do it again & again
well into their sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties---
No one complains about long forgotten stag films
left in boxes on basement floors
showing grandma w/ the neighbor
circa World War Two and into the 1950s---
No one complains about ****** harassment
unless they’ve been harassed---
No one complains about ****
except those that have been ***** & not always then---
No one complains about ******
except those that have been murdered---
No one complains about postmodern burlesque
Although the rule is ‘if anything moves, **** it’
& if any man reaches for his *****, arrest him---
The Modernist/postmodernist Marcel Duchamp’s
bride stripped bare by her bachelors even
gets no complaints from MOMA or  any other mother---
I can’t wear this mask anymore
& there’s nothing behind it---
If I kicked ur door in & shot ur mother dead
several times just to be sure
she was ******* deader than dead
& said I must have made a mistake, would that be cool w/ u, officer?
The Frankfurt School & Fassbinder & poststructuralism
are the heirs to Maria’s estates
from Frankenstein to Superman,
At the school of the Soviet fembot---
her Japanese mother is a witch who is not a stranger
to myths of night; eating off ***** plates on the floor---
Her name was Amelia then---
She’s a pig tonight---
I & the son are one
with the background radiation---
Getting people to help her
carry her ***-stained mattress
around campus is neither modern, retro & or avante-garde---
Its plain disgusting, help me carry my *** stains across campus
So you can see where my period bled & I said no---
(The ancestors of the the fembot are not strangers
She is named Emma tonight,
she is the pig tonight)

what has our intelligence done for us
other than soften our instinct
slow down our reflex
made us into habitual
connoisseurs of convenience
curators of insta-gratification  
creatures of know it all
without the need
to understand anything
the universe just
a night sky out of reach
just a spattering of stars dot the sky
all the cosmos overhead
and we are too consumed
by the blue screens that feed
the narcissism of our egos
to look up in awe and wonder
to question the arrogance
of our intelligence
to see how little we know
about the things we know
as we have killed the view of heaven
with the artificial light of our pollution
facts blurred with faith
and we ignore all the fiction
that causes so much friction
that we allow our children...
that we force our children...
to ****** other children
boys feeling like men
poisoned by patriotism and pride
in such a rush to die
for the words of freedom
never stopping to question
the definition of the repetition
and redundancy of war
never stopping to question
the repetition
and redundancy of war
never stopping to question
the redundancy
never stopping
the redundancy
the redundancy of war
as we will not question the intelligence
that infects us with
the sovereignty to be exalted
by our own cruelty
how else could we excuse
our history that keeps repeating
keeps its transcripts written
in the death and blood of the innocent
mislead by prejudice and hate
taught by fear and ignorance
all brought to us
by what we call intelligence

why were we given these hearts
this muscle beating below our ribs
what good is it
if only driven
by the intellect of our minds
our self indulgent intelligence
why have hearts at all
if we never stop to listen
listen to the message
of its beating
its pounding on our ribs
if we never stop to accept the wisdom
it sings in ever silent word
words that need no definition
need no ink or blood
written down in a declaration
of its reason to be living
it needs not our intelligence to survive
our intellect to live
it has its own wisdom
the wisdom of love
and in our grand intelligence
we are too blind to see
too deaf to hear
too unwilling to feel the truth
of how useless any intelligence is
without the wisdom of love

Insomniacs ? give it up.

Early birds ? poetry nerds. Holla .

If you feel me. write a line.

Espresso connoisseurs  take it to the head.

blink back at the cursor.

and fire of a line.

if i had an art museum,
it would have a blue roof
and white walls, and
it would be filled with
nothing but mirrors.

one by one,
people would walk in,
expecting to see a dali,
da vinci, or van gogh
along the hallway.

but instead, they would
spend the day becoming
connoisseurs of their own
curves, freckles, and
wavering footsteps.

and i'd sit in a corner
with a notepad in hand
and an unseen smile.
people sometimes forget
that they too are art.

Unknown musicians paying their dues
Grill smoke , multicolored blankets , children
riding seesaws , lollygagging on swings , curing my blues
Laughter and celebration ,the smell of Brunswick
stew and barbecue filling the Sunday air
A fews hours with zero cares , a sweet smile and
auburn hair , a beach towel for two , we gaze into
cobalt sky blue
Searching for angels , faces and Presidents
Feeding the nuthatches , the thrushes and the ravens
We're the hot dog and hamburger mavens , we're the connoisseurs of plum wine , brie , swiss and shortbread biscuit , sweet tea picnic table caramel corn cravings  
Holding each other tight in sleepy , piedmont sunshine
Savoring this memory forever* .

Talk - it's cheap and full of sheep.
Air moving, mouthing, making
words to distract and bamboozle,
meaning is used to confuse you.

Colour - superfluous and intangent.
It divides just as much / as it unifies,
the masses and controls our thoughts,
trick of the light, a tailored emotion.

Taste - individuality in isolation.
Eating. Engulfing, endlessly entropic.
Consumers call connoisseurs canon,
Sordid selfish sense, seldom shared.

Brothers and sisters of ink and blood.
Storytellers, poets, connoisseurs of love.
The downhearted, broken. Betrothed and betrayed.
Lend me your ear, your heart, and your page.

My quill has run dry, but yours still runs free.
My imagination is dim, though you still believe.
I said hello, poetry. Goodbye tainted thoughts.
But it takes more than words to break such locks.

So, write me a sonnet, haiku, or a ballad.
A lymeric, lyric, even elegies are valid.
Deliver your song of keyboard clicks,
Tell of your lover, your pain, politics.

Grant me this wish,
Fulfill this desire.
I am freezing cold,
and your words are on fire.