Half-Random Rhymes Read online

Half-Random Rhymes

  Steve Tiffany

  Copyright 2009 Steve Tiffany

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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.