Friday Fluff: Bad to Verse
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It’s National Poetry Month, which I almost always forget about until it’s almost over. SM’s the poetry expert here, with an MFA in poeting, but I’ve got a Master’s in English and a deep-seated and ferocious love of good poetry. Many is the intense conversation we’ve had about how to interpret “The Waste Land,” or how our heads exploded at the last line of “Archaic Torso of Apollo.” We even have inside jokes about things like Inner Resources. I actually don’t know Kate’s feelings on poetry, but she is an overeducated dorko too so I have to assume they are positive. This is a poem-friendly space is what I’m saying.
But there are way too many amazing, amazing poems and way too much copyright trolling on the internet for me to post every poem I want you guys to read. Instead, I’d like to mine the rich vein of doggerel that runs through this community, particularly from champion poetasters like A Sarah and MissPrism. Nothing makes me happier than when a bit of rhyme shows up in the comments, so consider this a challenge to produce some deathless lyric, or at very least some silly stanzas, on the subject of dieting or body image or something completely unrelated to this blog. Need some inspiration? Check out Miss Conduct’s clerihew contest from last year (I got third place!) or our very own haiku Friday Fluff. Not a versifier? That’s okay — it’s still National Blank Verse Blog Week, so give us your best unrhymed shot.
To start you off, here is the great Ogden Nash with “Curl Up and Diet.” We wouldn’t have written it — a little too much thin-bashing — but the man is a towering versemaster if not an ahead-of-his-time paragon of feminist body-positivity.
Some ladies smoke too much and some ladies drink too much and some ladies pray too much,
But all ladies think that they weigh too much.
They may be as slender as a sylph or a dryad,
But just let them get on the scales and they embark on a doleful jeremiad:
No matter how low the figure the needle happens to touch,
They always claim it is at least five pounds to much;
To the world she may appear slinky and feline,
But she inspects herself in the mirror and cries, Oh, I look like a sea lion.
Yes, she tells you she is growing into the shape of a sea cow or manatee,
And if you say No, my dear, she says you are just lying to make her feel better, and if you say Yes, my dear, you injure her vanity.
Once upon a time there was a girl more beautiful and witty and charming than tongue can tell,
And she is now a dangerous raving maniac in a padded cell,
And the first indication her friends and relatives had that she was mentally overwrought
Was one day when she said, I weigh a hundred and twenty-seven, which is exactly what I ought.
Oh, often I am haunted
By the thought that somebody might someday discover a diet that would let ladies reduce just as much as they wanted,
Because I wonder if there is a woman in the world strong-minded enough to shed ten pounds or twenty,
And say There now, that’s plenty;
And I fear me one ten-pound loss would only arouse the craving for another,
So it wouldn’t do any good for ladies to get their ambition and look like somebody’s fourteen-year-old brother,
Because, having accomplished this with ease,
They would next want to look like somebody’s fourteen-year-old brother in the final stages of some obscure disease,
And the more success you have the more you want to get of it,
So then their goal would be to look like somebody’s fourteen-year-old brother’s ghost, or rather not the ghost itself, which is fairly solid, but a silhouette of it,
So I think it is very nice for ladies to be lithe and lissome.
But not so much so that you cut yourself if you happen to embrace or kissome.
I’d forgotten about that poem! Ogden Nash…a poem for every occasion.
Oh, my fat
how at times you make me lol
Then what shaking comes
as a bowl of Jello
(but not the sugar-free kind,
the taste is weird to me)
Note: There is a reason why I’m a statistician, not a versificator.
That’s awesome. I am not a poet nor am I quite witty enough to stand amongst this fine crowd so I’ll just sit back and watch the brilliance roll in as it will.
This is a silly little poem I wrote about aging awhile back. Not entirely about FA, but I thought I’d throw it out here :)
Middle Age
Gray at the temples
Lightly peppered throughout
Covered by highlights
Though I have no doubts
Chin hairs plucked daily
First black and now gray
Wrinkly, a bit scaly
Slather on Oil of Olay
The creaking and popping
Now my morning song
Aching and swelling
This HAS to be wrong!
Eyesight that once
Sparkled twinkling and bright
Now faded and squince
Especially at night
The spring in my step
Now mottled with rust
My bounce is all gone
‘Cept the one in my gut!
Middle Age is upon me
An old lady I see
Though when I’m not looking
Inside, I’m 16!
There once was a mother of three
Who read “Shapely Prose” eagerly
(Tho the baby was crying;
The wash needed drying).
“Here’s to fat girls and verse that is free!”
The first time I eat
cake without shame, I wonder
is this what’s so bad?
Cats on my fat
find only spaces for kneading
and no room for shame
Kate Harding says: world, yes, I’m fat
And people are so shocked at that
For fatties have rabies
And eat donuts of babies
And lay there for people to poke at.
We are all under pressure so severe
If you think you’re alright – come here
I’ll flip through a magazine with you
Or sit you down in front of a TV
It’s for your own good, I’m not trying to make you blue
Besides, to be a real woman you have to be miserable with me
If you think plastic surgery is too extreme
There plenty of other things that will hardly make you scream
Your hair color is wrong
I think you should probably dye it
But the message that is most strong
is: you are too fat – DIET!
I’ve been a lurker forever but this tickled me into commenting.
Hello all! I love your community!
~ Cygnet
And eat donuts of babies
And lay there for people to poke at.
laughing so hard right now
I love haikus!
*ahem*
Poor dieting girl
You are already skinny
Why don’t you see that?
Shapely Prose is cool–
No, it’s pretty much awesome.
I like being fat.
A fat lady got on a plane
And all of the world went insane
They said: go to hell
In a cave you must dwell
Lest some fuckin’ asshole complains
I’m sorry to say that there’s nothing that rhymes with “donuts.”
“Go nuts”?
ETA:
Cream buns and donuts and fruitcake with no nuts so good you could go nuts?
This is just to say
that I ate the baby donuts in the box
that you were probably saving for Sunday breakfast
Forgive me
They were delicious
All baby-powdery and soft
He said: Don’t be fat in my face!
‘Cause your fat is all up in my space!
You should stop eating donuts
You fatties are ho-sluts
Now, can we move to third base?
Oh, bravo, cereselle.
BTW you’ve seen Kenneth Koch’s take, right? It kills me every time. “Forgive me, I simply do not know what I am doing.”
*trying not to point out that the last line in a haiku is like the last couplet in a (crap, which form, shakespearean?) sonnet* (down! bad critic! it’s SUPPOSED to be bad poetry!)
If I weren’t trying to stave off horrible headacheland, I’d try to come up with my own.
rhyme for donuts: butts/buts guts cuts ….actually quite easy.
at least you’re not trying to rhyme with orange.
So much depends
on a tired woman
gazing in the mirror
beside the bathroom scale
m. leblanc is on fire today!
Has anyone yet read the book Fat Poets Speak? I’m curious to hear more about it.
Here’s an Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Poets-Speak-Voices-Society/dp/1597190160/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240587680&sr=1-1
Yeah, masculine rhymes for “donuts” is easy, feminine rhymes less so.
I am loving cereselle’s WCW parody theme…
rhyme for donuts: butts/buts guts cuts ….actually quite easy.
No, but with a limerick the scansion is important. The stress is DO-nuts. So you can’t have a one-syllable word that rhymes with ‘nuts”, it won’t sound right.
“Forgive me, I simply do not know what I am doing.”
I actually started designing a hollyhocks cross-stitch with that poem. Maybe someday I’ll have the time to stitch it up. It’s one of my favorite things ever written. :)
I was an English major too. I can keep this up all day.
masculine rhymes?
what’s masculine about cutting up a cake or something?
*boggle*
FJ, someone in one of my classes wrote a 3 page paper on “So much depends…” We were all astounded.
*tries desperately to remember more WCW without resorting to google…*
TBS, http://lmgtfy.com/?q=masculine+and+feminine+rhymes ;)
I really fucking hate lmgtfy.com
Just saying.
So much depends
on a baby donut
Glazed with sugar
Beside..another donut
I didn’t know it was an official term, by the way
cereselle, “Love Song” is my favorite but I don’t know if it lends itself to SP parody.
Who shall hear of us
in the time to come?
Let him say there was
a munching of donuts
out in the open.
Yeah, it loses something.
oh, single/double rhymes. if you’d said that, I’d have recognized it…
I really fucking hate lmgtfy.com
There’s an awesomely easy way to never have anyone link you to it again.
Okay—I don’t write songs lyrics, as a rule; I usually just mess with well-known songs, resulting in stuff like ‘Twas the Cat Before Christmas and so on. But the last verse of this has been sitting around in my scribble notebook and humming in my ear for a while, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to write it out, for better or worse.
I’m hearing it as a country-blues-folk kind of thing—which means I don’t have to get the meter exactly right—and maybe sung by a deep-voiced guy with a sense of humor.
And now I’m going to submit this &^$% thing before I start editing it again . . . okay now . . . no, wait . . . now . . .
We were all sittin’ in a bar
On one of those kinds of nights
When no one could even find the juice
To start up any fights.
So we sat there with our beers, alone,
In that quiet kind of mood
Where a man, he gets to thinking
and maybe starts to brood.
But Tom, he started grinnin’
So we asked him what was up.
He shook his head and chuckled,
And said, “Well, boys, not a lot.”
“My job went south a month ago,
My dog, she died right after.
My Mother-in-law moved in with us
And dried up all the laughter.
“My youngest son needs braces
My daughter, she runs wild
And if it weren’t for Planned Parenthood
I’d probably have my first grandchild.
“Things sure aren’t the way they were
And my wife, well, she got fat.
But that’s the thing that makes me smile
‘Cause I kind of like her like that.
Okay, this is something I wrote previously, but it does touch on food, and yesterday was Talk Like Shakespeare day. So:
J: Describe then unto me the dens of sin
Where smok’st thou of the herb that sends thy soul
To heights untrammeled by despair and woe
And leaves thy belly clam’ring for its due.
V: What wouldst thou hear?
J: That herb is not forbid?
V: ‘Tis not forbid, yet those who seek its use
May not to inns and taverns thus resort,
Unless that place be marked with a sign
That such is welcome; then all may partake.
‘Tis bought, ‘tis sold, ‘tis carried here to there,
The watch hath no allowance thee to stop.
J: Such places fain would I see, were I there,
Fair Amsterdam, thy pleasures know no end!
V: ‘Twould serve thy fancies well, I’ll mark, and yet
The more strange are those things which seem the same,
But some slight change disturbs their seeming thus,
And renders foreign all that thou doth see.
J: I prithee, speak on it.
V: I shall. Observe,
Not water, but good beer may be purchased
At any theatre thou care’st to ‘tend,
And not mere dipperfuls; marry, no,
But in good goblets of Venetian glass.
Likewise at vendors’ stalls may thou imbibe.
And quarter-pound pasties, those offerings
That innkeepers may serve, be not so named.
J: What name, then, callest those?
V: Royale with Cheese.
J: A wondrous name, I ween. And the Big Mac?
V: That name doth stay the same, though language change,
And costers of France call it Le Big Mac.
J: And of the Whopper’s name?
V: I know it not;
But Hollanders may dine on good French fries,
And with them not a drop of ketchup eat.
But mayonnaise be served up withal.
J: Thou liest, whoreson knave!
V: Not so, I pledge!
Their tastes to mayonnaise are so deeply run
That nature shudders for profligacy.
J: ‘Tis passing strange, that such furnishings be.
A wealth of tissue adipose
isn’t all that bad, I s’pose.
cereselle, my jaw is hanging open. Holy shit that is the greatest thing ever. Marry, thy contribution hath justified the entire thread.
That reminds me of something my students wrote when I assigned them to do a parody of the St. Crispin’s Day speech. Let me see if I can remember it…
If y’all don’t wanna be here, get to steppin’
Just leave if you can’t hold a weapon
If we come back alive we be straight chillin’
And holla at the dude named Crispin.
Wear your scars with pride
Pour out a forty for the homies that died
Tell all y’all’s kids ’bout what goes down today
We be like brothers yo that’s what I say
It’s all good if the crimson flow
We gon’ be like kings, yo
cereselle,
I shared your “Pulp-ed Storye” with my husband and almost had oj coming out of his nose.
You are verily awesome.
Two roads diverged in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Wood
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
until I spied a pile of donuts;
Then took the other, much less fair,
because I want to Eat Right And Exercise
and because I saw the ooga-booga obesity crisis;
but the weight of the travellers there
had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
in leaves no feet had trodden with sugar.
Oh, I kept the first for commercials about chocolate!
Yet knowing how chocolate leads to diabetes and eternal misery,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in the chocolate factory, and I –
I took the one with no donuts,
and now I am a Paragon of Maidenly Virtue.
OMG, cereselle, I want to sex you.
I mean, in a friendly way.
Along the same lines, I am most fond of this. (A friend wrote it and I titled it.)
Egad, that Berryman poem! The moment you said the words ‘Inner Resources,’ I was like, ‘Every to confess you’re bored means you don’t have them!’
I was hoping that was the reference you were making. For some reason that poem sticks with me. ;o9
fillyjonk,
More oj for the St.. Crispin’s homeboys!
Oh man, I had heard some of those Kenneth Koch ones, but not the hollyhocks one. I keep giggling, that is great.
–
1.
I think Sweet Machine,
Fillyjonk, and Kate Harding
are fucking awesome.
2.
Doughnuts and babies
both can be so delicious.
Together at last
3.
Where are my doughnuts?
Why aren’t they gluten-free?
Oh, just eat babies.
4.
I have to teach soon
We are learning about fish
And how to eat them.
Fat Girl’s Love Song (with apologies to Syvia Plath – although I doubt she cares much, at this point)
I shut my eyes and my fat falls away.
I lift my lids and it is back again.
(I just eat baby donuts all the day.)
When people see me, they all run away,
As if fat might appear beneath their skin.
I shut my eyes and my fat falls away.
I know that I should care how much I weigh.
Eating, for me, it seems it is a sin.
(I just eat baby donuts all the day.)
I won’t hide – I will dance, and sing, and play
And look away from faces that are grim.
I shut my eyes and my fat falls away.
(I just eat baby donuts all the day.)
Straight Outta Norton. Brilliant. :D
Hee, I’m glad everyone liked my Pulp Shakespeare! This is the thread it came from. Lots of good stuff there.
I always appreciate a friendly sexing, m. leblanc. :)
and now I am a Paragon of Maidenly Virtue.
And now I must return the sexing. Awesome.
Part the first:
Let us go, then, on touching thighs
Spreading out across the unfriendly skies
Like a buffet spread out on a table
Let us go, through half-desserts are eat
Through muttering at the next seat
Of restless nights of tummy growls
Dreams of sawdust restaurants with oyster shells:
Of family reunions with tedious argument,
Society’s insidious intent
Oh, do not ask “what size is it?”
Let us go and eat some Cheez-Its!
A young lady who dined on Lean Cuisine
was fainting daily at the copy machine.
Then read up on Kate,*
said “Don’t worry ’bout weight!
Besides the whole dieting gig’s a smoke screen.”
The lady discovered that with enough fuel
She could work, play, and go back to school,
Could finish her degree
And write philosophy
And become quite the shark at pool.
* And others just as great!
Oh, do not ask “what size is it?”
Let us go and eat some Cheez-Its!
My cup runneth over.
Part the second:
In the room the women come and stay
Obsessed with how much they weigh.
The yellow cheese that rubs its back on burger buns
The yellow bell pepper in my salad
Both on my tongue on any evening
Lingered upon the mouth that strains
Unlike fake food that tastes like the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped through the self-loathing, made a sudden leap
And seeing that I’m still all right,
Went to bed full, and fell asleep.
PegKittie and Miz H: I am in awe.
*waits to find out if Miz H will dare to eat a peach*
Part the third:
And indeed there will be a time
For the yellow cake that birthday girls eat
Frosting, apples, carrots, glaze;
There will be a time, there will be a time,
To eat those things—the ones you *want* to eat
There will be time to think and create
And time for all the words of weight loss adds
That lift and drop the question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me
All while taking toast and tea.
In the room the women come and stay
Obsessed with how much they weigh
Some say the world will end in muffins,
Some say in cake.
From what I know of belly-stuffins,
We all could get obese on muffins.
But if we say “For heaven’s sake,
my life is more than what I eat,”
I think that for enjoyment cake
Is yummy, sweet,
And no mistake.
fatties die
friends die
thin ones die too.
I can not
in consequence
blame the baby donuts
Part the fourth:
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to work out on the stairs,
With a fat jiggling in the glare—
[They will say: “How can she do it—she’s not thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “How’s she so hot, she’s not thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50
I have measured out my dinner with coffee spoons;
I know the voices crying, hating at us all
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
Part the last (as the rest of the poem would need very, very little revision to be on topic)
I grow bold … I grow bold …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
They sing because of how much I love me.
I have seen them riding fatty waves of glee
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
Eating chocolate white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of SP
By feminists wreathed with wrap dresses red and brown 130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
*weeps*
Miz H, you are my hero.
Miz H, part the last gave me goosebumps.
I was going to post some stuff but I’m just not going to lower the standard in here. Some of these are wonderful.
This thread is fantastic!
Edwin Morgan, sorry! I had to do it! And Miz H, love! LOVE!
There were never baby donuts
like the ones we shared
that spring day
sitting in our cubicles
inclining toward the monitor
then the balmy weather
admiring our crazy icons
(like people, like muppets)
Your prose like sunshine
and my finger on refresh
while we bit deep
powdered sugar on the keyboard
glistening like snow in the fluorescent office light
not hurrying the main post feast
for one to come
the comments like bubbles of champagne
On my screen
such beautiful cleverness
write more, dear commenters and bloggers,
let me love you
250 comments all brilliant
refuge from the outside
and the summer swimsuit panic
one hour for lunch
then let’s mock the trolls.
There was a girl from Nantucket,
All the boys used to make fun of her bucket.
Until one day
She found FA,
And told all those asshats to fuck it.
What fun! Lovin’ the parodies and originals.
“You are old, Mother Ceres,” the young woman said,
“And your body’s become very fat.
And yet you wear stylish and fashionable clothes;
Are you quite sure that you should do that?”
“In my youth,” Mother Ceres replied with a grin,
“I attempted to hide all in black.
But muumuus and tents don’t do nothing for me,
So I feel no remorse for their lack!”
“You are old,” said the girl, “and I cannot believe
That you dance in a bellydance troupe.
Don’t you know you are making a show of yourself,
When you ought to be home sipping soup?”
“In my youth,” said the woman, “I shuddered and hid,
Thinking no one would want to see me.
But now that I’m old, I don’t care for their scorn,
So I dance and I feel wild and free!”
“You are old,” said the girl, “but you sing awfully loud,
When most women are terribly quiet.
Are you certain your voice hasn’t got far too big?
Don’t you think it should go on a diet?”
“In my youth,” said the woman, “I whispered aloud,
When something I needed to say.
Now when I feel like it, I’ll sing and shout,
And defy anyone to say nay!”
“You are old,” said the girl, “and you take so much space,
That you ought to feel shame for such bulk.
Look here, I’ve a membership for Jenny Craig!
You can excise your inner She-Hulk!”
“I have given more time,” said the old woman now,
“Than your questions and nagging deserve.
I have lived long and happy with what I have got,
So damn your ‘concern’ and your nerve!”
Mad props to JM and Mia! Those are really good!
WAAAAH!!! I’m so excited!! My spouse and I played hookie this morning and drove out to Amish country, so this is the first I’m seeing this. Okay, you all are brilliant. I’m going to set to work on my poem right now, and then I’ll post it, and then I’ll tell you all how brilliant you are again.
Alas, I was not born under a rhyming planet, so I cannot contribute much. However my day has been kinda crappy so far and this is cheering me up immensely.
not to mention my inner language geek is virtually flailing and rolling around in all the words in ecstasy. ;)
DRST
Some parenting work I have done, a haiku
My children now joke
That killing puppies is bad,
Not eating ice cream
I am so very much loving this thread.
Oh, my God, I have huge internet crushes on Miz H and Cereselle.
So, I am not so good with the parody on account of not being funny. But I did just recently finish a (serious) poem on an FA-adjacent topic, and am planning to perform it in competition tomorrow night. It’s at my livejournal, here: http://sweetlittlemary.livejournal.com/67770.html
J: Thou liest, whoreson knave!
V: Not so, I pledge!
Their tastes to mayonnaise are so deeply run
That nature shudders for profligacy.
This has made my whole day. Maybe my whole week.
Linz, that was great, and I never say that about poetry if I don’t mean it.
ETA: No, it was really REALLY great.
Wow. Linz, that was amazing. Thanks for sharing it.
More on that: The part about the lover – I had to read it a few times before I could move on. I don’t even know how to describe the emotion that it provoked. It was just so sadly familiar.
This is fantabulistically merveilleux!! I don’t have anything to contribute just now, but I have enjoyed this so very much. Kudos to all.
Yay poetry! I lurk around here all the time (and comment when I’m not feeling too shy.) I work for the Academy, proprietors of Poets.org and launchers (many years ago now) of National Poetry Month. Thanks for the shout out to NPM and link to our site.
We’re doing a project this year called Free Verse, where people send in pictures of poetry in the wild (http://www.flickr.com/groups/freeverse/) I’m not a poet of any kind, but I do like to bake so I thought you dudes might like to see my contribution:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/audreythebug/3339870378/in/set-72157600576485971/
Poetry cake! That’s right, the fat chick made cake.
Thus ends my shameless self promotion. Nice to see my job and the thing I do when I should be doing my job but am not coincide.
PS: apologies if talking about work stuff in a fun thread is jerky or too self-promotional. Just got excited about the crossover.
*giggle* These are awesome.
To the tune of “Oklahoma:”
Baaaaaaaaaaaby Donuts, scary fatties eat them without pause!
Scarfing left and right,
E’vry donut in sight,
They are global warming’s prim’ry cause!
They eat them with fanfare and fuss,
And they eat them just to tempt us!
And when we screeeeeeeeam, Hey!
You’re eating fattening creeeeeeeeam! They!
Keep telling us that
We, too may eat Baby Doooooonuts!
Baby Donuts! No way!
(Fatty response)
Baaaaaaaaaaaby Donuts, creamy goodness extraordinaire!
Fluffly, sweet and light,
With every tasty bite,
Fuck the folks who sit around and stare!
We know we may eat what we like,
‘thout fear, guilt or related spite!
And when we yellllllllll, Hey!
Now get out of my waaaaaaaa-AY!
We’re only saying
We love you, dear Baby Doooooonuts!
Baby Donuts! Oh, yay!
You all are so awesome! I wasn’t born under a rhyming planet either, so I’m just reading, but this thread is making my day. I can’t wait to come back later and see new posts!
Cream buns and donuts and fruitcake with no nuts
Meat pies and french fries and breaded chick-en thighs
Ice cream and custard and hot onion rings
These are a few of my favourite things
When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I’m feeling sad
I just eat a ton of my favourite things
So I deserve to feel bad.
omgoddess Linz that was BEAUTIFUL. Miz H and Cereselle, ummm, YES.
this is also not really funny but I don’t know how to link…
Reminder:
(For Young Ladies in Times of Confusion)
Love the perfect animal of your body.
Love her lush flanks and round belly, love
The pale mistakes you wrought upon her skin, love
All written therein, her scars and signs, the lines
She writes when you’re asleep.
Love her stillness and strange grace
Love her brave soles, and her face
That’s yours, and not yours.
Love her gait, her feline sway, her purr
the heft of hips and swing of tail that’s almost there,
the rush of blood, her stalwart heart,
Her joints that don’t yet creak much;
Love each part of her, even the ones you don’t.
(Love her fickle ankles, her blurred eyes
love her fair and dimpled thighs, love how she won’t –
though you fought hard – betray her softness there.
Love her in the morning, with that hair).
Love her supple sinew and strong bone,
Her lovely voice, her jiggle, her giggle, her moan –
Rejoice in her mysterious mind
That breathes, that moves, that bleeds and bloods
your limbs, her limbs, your heartways’ floods and tides.
Love her youth, while it abides, and know
If lucky,
You will live its fading; so:
Then love her as she softens and she slows,
Love her as she aches and pains, as she grows grey,
And saggy, wrinkled, old, as the bag of her skin
Empties itself of you, while you
If lucky
Still feel bright as you do now, as live; the thread
In the fine eye of now’s needle, as apt
to bless her head, her heart, her eyes, her hands, to say:
Oh thank you, love, for carrying me so long;
Forgive me for my cruelty when young, I hope
I’ve served you well, as you did me; I knew
such pleasure in your muscle and your skin, your nose and ears,
Your lips and lips, your tongue, that brain of yours!
I am not mad that you grew old.
I am not mad that you grew ill
I am not mad that soon, your breath will fail, and I
Will let you go as best I can, since now
I’m lighter than I ever was, and need to go
Where you can’t walk.
It may be a relief for both of us now, that.
Farewell, strange lovely cat!
May you feed trees and grow in grass.
Let it be said: “Do you recall? She had a lovely ass,
And oh, they loved each other well, beloveds, all in all,
they loved each other day by day, and well.”
Or, if you will
This is just to say
I have smashed
the scale
that was in
the bathroom
and which
you were probably
hoping
to stand on for the 47th time today
Forgive me
it was pissing me off
so judgmental
and so cold
Er, the blog ate my first attempt!
Brilliant, Elusis!
My original attempt read thusly:
This is just to say
I have drunk
the diet shakes
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
dreading
for breakfast
How could you?
they were horrible
so gritty
and so cold
Yay, poetry! I love poetry.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
diets, starving hysterical naked
(because no one makes plus sizes)
dragging themselves to Weight Watchers meetings at dawn looking for a protein fix,
empty-bellied hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
confections to the strawberry macachino in the
insanity of weight.
Well, since we’re doing WCW parodies, I feel it’s my duty to link to David Malki’s take on the subject:
http://wondermark.com/410/
A woman said to the fatosphere
“Sir I am fat!”
“However,” replied the fatosphere,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of consternation.”
Whose donuts these are I think I know
His ass is at the checkout though
He will not see me stopping here
To make my mouth fill up with dough.
My grocery cart must think it queer
To stop without a Starbucks near
Between the milk and frozen steaks
The busiest Safeway of the year.
The cashier gives his head a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound’s the beep
Of Easy Mac and Frosted Flakes.
The donuts are lovely, Boston Cream,
But I have coupons to redeem
And errands to run before I dream
And errands to run before I dream.
Resume
Diets pain you;
Lap bands clamp;
Alli stains you;
Hunger causes cramps.
Meth’s not lawful;
Weight Watchers cheat;
Celery tastes awful;
You might as well eat.
Linz wins.
I forgot to say how much I love “Belly-stuffins.” This is soooo going to be part of me and Mr. H’s schmaltzy baby cooing language.
*prepares to propose marriage to cereselle in some excessively winsome way *
Linz my head exploded.
Oh man, this is GREAT… I’ve been lurking here for a while, but I love the poetry…
I agree, Linz’ Dorothy Parker parody may be one of the best things I’ve ever read.
“She rolls.”
No? Okay.
@m. leblanc —
KH, FJ, and SM’s babe donuts
taste quite literary, and we go nuts
then they bake down the trolls
so to serve them on rolls
and to say to them sweetly, “Go blow ****”
*hides face*
Linz, you are beyond awesome.
*hands over the internet*
i love you all.
A nice lady called Fatty Fat Fatty
Was thought by the world to be batty
When she said “No more diets–
You really should try it!”
And then sat on the folks who were catty!
Woowhoo! I’m the hundredth commenter.
Oh no – triple numbers! I’m the highest numbered biggest commenter here!
I shall hold my tongue and doggerel forevermore,
And disappear!
(Hey, does anyone know the one by Stevie smith that goes:
“This Englishwoman is so refined
She has no bosom and no behind.”
? :-P )
Wallace Stevens loved his nougat,
sadly mourned his secret eating–
let us send our spectral love
to the late large red man reading–
Peggynature has totally made my day with “The only other sound’s the beep / Of Easy Mac and Frosted Flakes.” Also, I meant to say earlier, Marste’s “Baby Donuts” song is BRILLIANT (I secretly kind of love Oklahoma).
Thank you so much, Fillyjonk and others who liked the poem on my lj. I am super nervous about performing it–it’s SO personal and I’m afraid people won’t get it, or won’t take it seriously, or whatever. My friends have managed to convince me that if I’m this scared of it I need to do it, but still. Quaking in my boots, a little, so it’s wonderful to get positive feedback!
Also, I wanted to do a “One Perfect Rose” thing with “One Baby Donut,” but gave up because of a tragic lack of rhymes. If anyone can make that work, I will give you the internet I just received from littlem. (Yes, re-gifting is rude, but I promise I’ve barely even used it!)
When in disgrace with fortune and BMIs
I heavily beweep my obese state
And trouble the neighbours with my rippling thighs
And curse myself and my genetic fate
Wishing me like to one more thin in frame
Sized like her, with her will-power possessed
Desiring to eat, but feeling shame
With calories and weight-point-sets obsessed,
Yet in these thoughts myself always despising
Haply I see your blog and then my state
Like to a baby doughnut gently rising
Unto my lips and there my hunger sate
For thy sweet writing causes me to grin
And care not if I ever end up thin
I almost don’t want to put this up here because I’m more of a punster and rhyme-player-with than a true poet, and some of what y’all have written is just amazing. But bravely I charge ahead:
Resumé
Fasting pains you;
Jenny’s expensive;
Alli stains you;
Spurlock’s offensive.
Points are annoying;
Boot camp’s elite;
Slim-Fast’s cloying;
You might as well eat.
OH FUCK!
Sorry Linz.
Yours is better.
I feel stupid.
I do love that we both came up with “Alli stains you,” though.
I’m so embarrassed.
Dude, there’s room in this world for many Dorothy Parker tributes. I love yours! Especially the Slim-Fast line.
And totally lolling my fat over the Alli thing. Great minds, etc.
Linz, thank you for being so gracious. I’m still mortified, but I’ll try not to dwell on it. The gaffe reminds me of something from a book from the 80s called _Family Words_, which was basically a dictionary of inside jokes collected from families. One family used a “Mr. Smat” for someone who tries to be a smartypants and it backfires. Apparently their son’s class, for parent teacher night, had all made name signs for their respective desks. This child, not content to put just his name, decided to put “Mr. Smart” instead. But he misspelled it.
Had we but world enough, and time,
This fatness, Lady, were no crime.
We would not think to ever weigh
Our bodies every single day.
Thou in an Indian restaurant
Shoulds’t curry find; and I would haunt
A pizza place nearby. I would
Have no shame in my love of food;
and you should, if you please, refuse
yourself to torture and abuse.
My vegetable love should grow;
My love for carbs and meat, also.
A hundred meals should go to praise
The chef, and her way with a glaze;
Two hundred to enjoy the wine,
And thirty thousand just to dine;
An age at least, to know Desert
And then, another slice can’t hurt.
For, lady, you deserve this state
Nor would I sup at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
The Diet Monger hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts devoid of pecan pie.
Thy jiggle shall no more be found,
Nor, on thy metal stove, shall sound
My bubbling pot. Then you shall eat
That long preserv’d low-calorie “treat”,
And your fair chocolate turn to dust,
And I’ll eat rice-cakes, if I must.
The scale’s a fine and private choice,
But none, I think, do there rejoice.
Now, therefore, while the donut frost
Sit on thy lip like powered gloss,
And while thy willing grill transpires
At every steak with instant fires,
Now, let us sport us while we may -
Please pass the chocolate soufflé.
Rather at once our food devour
Than languish in starvation’s power.
Let us roll all our nuts, and all
Our dried fruit, up into one ball,
Then eat it – you don’t need a knife.
This is the way to spend a life!
Thus, though we cannot make our body
Thin, yet we will make her free.
Kimberly O, *love*!
oops, that should be “Dessert”, in the first stanza, of course…
Vogon Ode to a Gall Bladder
Oh tiny organ filled with bile
We hardly knew each other
though you tried to get my attention
You started aching
And waving your ducts all up in my face
But I was too busy to notice.
We never really had a chance.
I bid you farewell,
bladder large as a brick
And probably as heavy.
I have a feeling medical science
will put you in a book.
But your fame is not for me.
All I have to remember you by is a photo,
wallet sized, glossy, and gruesome.
Have a good after-life.
Wow, if I hadn’t posted so early in the thread, I never would put anything out there. Everyone else has been doing such an awesome job.
Ummm, ok, a little Dorothy Parker:
Men love to make passes
at girls with fat asses
I’ll try to atone, but if it turns out someone’s already said this one despite my more-careful research I’ll have to leave and come back with another ID:
Night Thought of a Shapeling Suffering Insomnia on the Internet
The world is very fat.
There’s nothing wrong with that.
Muz,
Andrew Marvell’s dusty skull just smiled. … that was brilliant!
I was going to be a smart ass and put some Anglo-Saxon style alliterative verse up, but I’m having a lack of brain today. Everyone is so clever.
Kimberley, I am pleased beyond measure at the phrase “Andrew Marvell’s dusty skull.”
Kimberly O., that’s my favorite sonnet, too! (I know, 29 is my favorite, so original. At least I didn’t say 116.)
I bite my doughnut ’round and ’round
it will not last the night
But ah my foes and oh my friends
the doughnut brings delight!
Holy shit, y’all. I’ve laughed and cried and laughed again all through out this thread, and you ALL are brilliant.
I will have to use Linz’s “You might as well eat” as a … I don’t know what.
Banner?
Bumper Sticker?
Tattoo on my ass?
OH! I missed A Sarah’s!
Damn, people.
Aaaand buttercup pulls out the heavy guns.
Does anyone else ever wonder what would happen if somebody sicced the Klingons on the Vogons?
“IIIIIIIIINNN this corner …”
Littlem: I happen to think the Vogons would survive. I mean, they can make people’s brains explode with poetry. Pfft. All the Klingons got is…well…yeah…
Marie Antoinette
In propaganda’s take
Called to the world
‘Let them eat cake!’
What was a privilege
Is now scorned
I happen to say fuck it
And always go back for more
C: Something silly and stupid. xD Dig it~
It is nice to see some one else appreciate my favorite poet, he had something to say about just about everything and a way of mangeling words that is unsurpassed.
This thread is killing me!
More Dorothy Parker love:
Oh, weight is dependent upon what you eat,
And of course everyone can be skinny;
And diets are things that just can’t be beat;
And I am a Band-Aid named Penny.
When you sass
(Tiddly Pom)
On my fat ass
(Tiddly Pom)
It’s lack of class
(Tiddly Pom)
You’re showing
And nobody knows
(Tiddly Pom)
How tired we grow
(Tiddly Pom)
How tired we grow
(Tiddly Pom)
Of knowing
That it’s just myth
(Tiddly Pom)
And prejudice
(Tiddly Pom)
And prejudice
(Tiddly Pom)
You’re blowing
(For the kids.)
This thread is classic. This and the one with mondegreens should be… I dunno, bronzed or something.
Throws roses at entire thread.
Derision: An Ode
Well! Since the Blog is challenging, which holds
The wondrous notion of fat acceptance,
This site, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Unroused by trolls, that ply a shittier trade
Than those which fill yon queue, those lazy flakes,
With their dull thoughtless crap, that moans and rakes
Upon the old pretend concern dispute;
Who better far were mute.
For lo! The douchebag wants a fight!
And overspread with hatred bright,
(With brimming hatred bright o’erspread
But grammar, as with spelling, shun hir head)
Hir comments are displayed for all, resounding
With spewing-out of cruel and mindless blast.
And oh! They bring so gleeful a douchehounding,
And the hot scorn-shower driving loud and fast.
Those jeers which oft have raised me, whilst they mock,
And give the douche a knock,
Might now perhaps their wonted treatment give,
Might startle those dull jerks, and help me laugh and live!
Oh Edward Bear, with his round tummy and love of honey! Thank you, Arwen.
D’oh! Almost made it. “Shuns” in line 12, poetry lovers.
Buttercup, you should go to DragonCon this year-last year there was a Vogon Slam Poetry Contest and you would do well. I will include some of my own later.
My favorite so far though is Cerelle’s take on “You are Old, Father William.” I do so love me some Alice! Hmm..maybe I should do a take on the whole “Eat me!” bit from the book.
My mind is very happy.
Vogon Baby Donuts
Oh! Baby Donuts-
You are torpid, gluttonious things
with splatterings of spreckled white splendor that gets stuck to my lip
and then I have to wipe it off
before my captain (O! my wondiferous, so honorous, captain!) comes to collect the forms
with which I have inadvertently
(Oh! the horror! the supremest of horrors!) left smatterings of smudgins of flatudinous gluttonus sugar smackums over and into the margins of the most important (Oh! my sacred! and Oh! my lovely!) FORM B.
Your mention of The Waste Land got me wondering–is April National Poetry Month because it features in the first lines of two major works of poetry? It’s the cruellest month, yes, but it’s also the one whose shoures soote perce the droghte of March (to the roote, no less!) and it’s when folk longen to goon on pilgrimages.
You guys are all so awesome. This is so much fun. I’m still groggy from painkillers but …
Stopping By an Easter Basket on an April Afternoon
Whose candy is this? I think I know.
He’s not home from work yet, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To eat his chocolates before I go.
My hungry tum does growl so queer
To go without a snacky near
Between lunchtime and dinner’s bake
The hungriest time of day, I fear.
I give my belt a loosening shake
And check to see what I can take.
The only other choice is peeps
Of mallow marsh and sugary cake.
The chocolates lovely, dark and sweet,
And I have hunger pangs to beat,
And hours to go before I eat,
And hours to go before I eat.
(with apologies to Robert Frost AND Peggynature. :)
KCJones, LOVE IT. WAY more vogon than mine was.
I am truely amazed. I love what all of you have produced, love-me prose, hail-me verse, assail-me lyric, Shakes’-me trips of the pentongue. This, for I am only a man, is an experience delightful. This is my second effort into this mail; the first (and part of a second) was lost to in-expertise and a computer that was primed by an unforgiving soul. A quickly penned seven verses will…MUST…wait ’till I find that this is processed as truely a completed message. Again, thank you. Bless you…keep you from the many-mini-baby-growf”t nuts available on the growf’t nut market.
Have I trundled into an ocean rare with talent that I assume is fare, for perusal and introspect as well as josteling the tare? Oh please forgive my spelling, for in the haste of my telling I’ve lost the ken of wrong word and right and driven for the word of might to loan my heart to those who care of love and lust and hate and care. Behold my thoughts that keep me at wake, for I carte these words for all to take.
A Rehash Of Baby Doughnuts
I am amazed with the taste
Of poetries of every caste,
No, not just smatterings of just,
But baby doughnuts filled with lust.
Oh yes the pattern seems a woman’s song
that thrives ‘on molecules of a shaggy Kong
In jungle garb that hairy beast
could growl-up a cheezy, burger feast.
Oh, I repeat that I delight
In the feats of any poetic sight
That’s prop[elled in Shakes’-sardonic right,
But lingers lightly, smoothly as insight.
Though I’m a man, I truely see
An emphasis ‘on your femininity.
You may be fat and fluffy…true,
But the heart within’s what makes words true.
Oh sure if I could pose as skinny
And wear size 2 like a skeletal ninny,
I wouldn’t eat many, mini, baby doughnuts,
Even if many wouldn’t make me grow guts.
Oh my, it’s so hard for me to stop
I can’t find the time to ever top
Reading your heafty, reedy stuff
That I had forgotten some could puff.
And read, and write, and force
A notion, for a select of course
Like us few, though gender frozen,
Feel not bad, such words pour fourth from few so chosen.
OMG y’all, I am out of town so I just caught up on this thread all at once. You have done me so proud. I am overawed.
muz, A++++ for incorporating “My vegetable love should grow” so smoothly.
This Be The (New) Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad,
They may not mean to, but they do.
They put you on the diets they had,
And find some new ones, just for you.
But they were plumped up in their turn
By fools with old-style cakes and pies,
Who fed them butter freshly churned
And cried, “Now watch those thunder thighs!”
Skinny legs, big tits, and tan:
No recipe for perfect health.
Love your body ’cause you can;
Don’t starve away your perfect self.
Holy mother of fuck, muz, I am loving your work. The first one especially.
You are all full of magical. Thank you!
I’ll just keep posting silly haikus, then, since I cannot possibly measure up to the awesomeness of this thread!
I had some breakfast
But I’m still a bit hungry.
But I think I’ll wait.
Today’s lunch in town
is with a bunch of Shapelings.
I’m totally stoked.
Last night I bought a
frog for my awesome fishtank.
He sits on the ground.
Oh, Sweet Machine, I love the Philip Larkin one. Squee! You’ve inspired me to boot: Philip Larkin made me think of Howard Nemerov (Nemerov’s style is compared to Larkin’s) and that made me think of other poet laureates which made me think of Billy Collins which made me write an FA homage to this poem.
THE HUNGRY YEARS
All I would do, those drawn-out days
is sit in my kitchen counting Winning Points (TM)
for which there was no win to be had
and, last time I checked, no point.
I could have switched to Core (TM) instead,
Eating only the foods Weight Watcher anoints.
But the lack of taste, and the pain in my core
would only remind me of Winning Points (TM)
This year it’s Momentum (TM) — a plan that’s “new!”
Last year it was 1-2-3 Success (TM).
Both of them suck, and neither one’s new,
So I’ll spend the money on a new dress.
Fuck anyone whom this disappoints
I said, as I stopped counting Winning Points (TM).
Oh, and I just want to echo all the muz love.
You are amazing!
aww, thanks, you guys! y’all are amazing.
Yeats on intuitive eating, anyone?
I will arise and go now, and go to KFC,
And sit and eat my lunch upon the plaza in the shade;
A side of beans I’ll have there, and maybe a cup of tea,
And calories shall not make me afraid.
On Tuesday I had pizza, with cheese all dripping slow,
Dripping off the rack in the oven in long and glistening strings;
Last night I made a salad with grilled radicchio,
And now I really fancy spicy wings.
I will arise and go now, for in the office they
All moan about the perils of the foods that they adore,
And talk of Points all day, with faces wan and grey,
And I don’t think I can stand it any more.
*de-lurk*
I loved that one, Emerald, since it’s one of the few poems being parodied here that I can actually remember in its entirety.
I wander’d hungry as a bear
That hibernates ‘neath vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a pair,
Of restaurants that featured grills;
I stopped and stared, tried to decide,
If I dared to go inside.
But feeling shamed (as I should)
For snacking on a Milky Way,
I decided that I would be good:
I’d had too many calories that day
Looking with sad backward glance,
I gave the ’skinny me’ a chance.
The female coworkers that then I had,
All on Weight Watchers, praised me.
A woman could not but be sad,
In such a brainwashed company:
I starved — and counted — finally thought
Little health to me a diet brought.
Now oft, when on my couch I lie
In lazy baby-donut mood,
I snack upon some cherry pie
Before the bliss of fried seafood;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
To hell with diets and treadmills.
Love, love, love Ogden Nash. Actually his is the only poetry I can read.
I like to say I have a swimmer’s build…a manatee swims quite well.
Okay, I’m a day late:
Gaily bedight,
A lady knight
In sunshine and in shadow
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song
In search of El Dorado
“Grow thin, grow small”
The Shadows call
“And make yourself a shadow
To waste away,
Is the only way
For a maid to find El Dorado.”
And soon her strength,
failed her at length
And o’er her heart a shadow
From fasting weak,
She scarce could speak
Yet saw no El Dorado
The maiden cried
She said “You lied”
And cursed the hateful shadow
That bade her starve,
Her flesh to carve
To find her El Dorado
(I wanted to give this a happy ending, but couldn’t come up with anything that quite fit. Besides, it’s Poe, and Edgar Allen was the original emo, so it can just stay depressing.)
I went to the doctor and the doctor said,
Eat less and exercise, perhaps cut out bread.
A smart girl like you knows it’s calories in and out,
You can lose the weight, you just need to go without.
Stop eating chocolate, you can reduce your bust,
Start to walk daily, your routine will soon adjust.
Cut out the soft drinks and always take the stairs,
Buy some tiny pants, or even a couple of pairs.
Motivation is all that you require to succeed,
For fried foods and doughnuts there really is no need,
You’ll be so much healthier without these nasty foods,
And not only that, you’ll be knocking back the dudes.
At first I sat there meekly as the doctor spoke,
Tears in my pharynx did begin to choke,
I started to nod my head and wish for smaller clothes,
But then I remembered all the girls from Shapely Prose.
You know what, doctor, I began to say,
I am healthy and happy, it doesn’t matter what I weigh.
Your ideas are outdated and to disorder lead,
Your weight loss advice I neither want nor need.
I’ll eat what I like, in the quantities I choose,
I’ll exercise for fun, not in order to lose.
I’ll live my life for me, not for random men,
And I’ll thank you never to mention it again.
the donut saw volcanista.
volcanista saw the donut.
volcanista was bulgy.
the bulge was the donut.
:D
(okay, i’m feeling a little silly tonight. for some reason this is really making me laugh, waaay too much.)
Here’s a morbid haiku:
I ate gummy bears
head first, until they beseeched,
“That hurts! Swallow whole!”
I hope that’s silly enough for you, Volcanista!
Sincerest apologies to the psalmist — and I hope no one finds this blasphemous
The Lord to me a shepherd is
want therefor shall not I
he in my folds of tender flesh
doth make me down to lie
He leads me to the water still,
restores my soul doth he
for though I am the deathly fat
spares not his grace for me
In valley of death’s shade, although
I walk, I fear no ill
I eat, drink, sleep, hope, love and live
while fat? ’tis a riddle
He hath for me a table spread
in presence of my foes
he does with oil anoint my head
My cup, it overflows*
Goodness and mercy my days all
I hope will follow me
and in the Lord’s house dwell I shall
Fat or not, as days shall be
* I really couldn’t improve on this one. It’s good to be reminded of while reading the comments on the NY Times Well Blog.
wellroundedtype2 That was phenomenal!!!
“the bulge was donut”
You just killed me, volcanista. I’ll be laughing about that for days.
My diet years amounted more than ten
And much I learned of hatred in that time;
Of self, and food, and women, and of men
Of exercise and sex and life and clime.
Yet when I think on what of mine was lost
Which came to one decade and prob’ly more
I think it frightening I paid such a cost
And yet did gain so little on the score;
That quitting diets changed my weight but naught
But gained me sanity in such degree;
That now I laugh at dieting as sport
And scorn to change my weight to suit decree.
I wear the same size now as five years past;
The change is slower, having quit the fast.
(“Shakespeare dead? Poor old Bill! Why I never knew the poor fellow was ill!” – and if someone hooks up a cable to his tomb, I’m sure I’d be powering Stratford for a while).
Here are two I recently posted on my blog for National Poetry Month:
KILLING THE BODY
Here it comes lurching,
in wreck and ruin–
yet another poem
featuring Woman versus Body.
We are legion,
us would-be murderers.
Maybe we’re born with such urges:
comets of breath bewildered
by the sudden weight of form–
salt and heart, liver and tongue.
Perhaps we never got over
the stark shock of spines and teeth,
eyelids and ovaries;
it was all too much at once.
Perhaps it’s a bloodlust
we’re conditioned to:
oh the pleasure laced with shame
as we’re taught to take our licks and like it:
Kiss the knife. Pare off all excess.
Curl in like an apple peel.
Now cut
every last yearning
cell of the holy from your core.
Good girl
razor hipped. Clavicle forward
show us
your breakables.
I’ve got a drawer full of tricks
for banishing a body,
poisons made of chastity and charity,
vials of pestilence and virtue,
and I have drank them each,
night by empty night.
But it’s been said, and I believe it,
that the body is a damn hard thing to kill.
It’s been said that anorexics
only seek enlightenment. It’s been said:
you can heal your life.
It’s all been said–every single goddamned thing
about the whole sad story.
There’s nothing left to do
but lift
vial to mouth, and drink.
-Kristen McHenry
And on a lighter note:
THE DAY MS. MORRY LET HERSELF GO
What they all said would happen finally did
on the day Ms. Morry let herself go.
She whirled down to breakfast in her robe–
trim Ms. Morry who had always forbid
herself sweets, either corn-based or dough,
devoured a sticky roll the size of a globe
and washed it down with a champagne toast,
then made the most shocking announcement:
From now on, she would no longer diet,
keep tight the taut, and stay flat as a ghost.
she’d stop weigh-ins and state her renouncement
of restraint and restriction, and riot
loud in the streets; her corpulent belly
breaching the top her Brooks Brothers slacks.
she would refuse to be miserably wed
to the gym; for her true love was jelly.
She’d eat out straight out of bags salt-laden snacks,
and move only for cake and well-buttered bread.
She would finally, truly let herself go!
With that she went waddling across the lawn,
her flesh surging due to lack of purging.
When last seen, Ms. Morry had a fresh glow
and a tattoo of a beautiful swan–
its smile and her lush stomach merging.
–Kristen McHenry
My couplet of reader response:
More applause
With hoots & guffaws!
Ya’ll have been goin’ to town. Love the wrap-up of laurel’s doctor poem. And this line—
Fuck anyone whom this disappoints — A Sarah
— superb. It has all the offhand “be gone!” ‘tude, yet still the care/propriety of the “m” on the “whom.”
O, to live a life whose memoir could rightly take that line as its title.
A problem lurks which gives me pause
a hateful thing without a cause
that seems to be the type of fodder
for data dredges for the odder
possibilities
concerning
concerns of
obesity.
Do the headless fatties wed?
Do they Do It in the bed?
Yet how do the headless fatties see
since-
obviously-
headless fatties headless be.
And if they manage- somehow- to mate
Do they intend to procreate?
What law can form to stop this trend
What lurking doom doth this portend?
The offspring emerges-appalling creature
with living fatty body features
But-headless-too-
like Dad and Mom-
Someone do a Telethon
to get the headless babies hats-
cover stumps with knitted caps-
Write The Star, tell the Inquirer
health care costs are getting higher
First item blares out on the local news-
Epidemic of obesity
has now produced-
headlessity.
Karen,
Brilliant.
Epidemic of obesity
has now produced-
headlessity.
is only rivaled by:
But-headless-too-
like Dad and Mom-
Someone do a Telethon
(starting a stump-cap knitting campaign now)
WOW. What talent here.
Someone oughta put an anthology together.
What I know about poetry could fit in a baby donut hole, so I doubt I’ve anything to contribute. Song lyric parodies are more my thing.
To continue with the prayerful theme, wellroundedtype2 (and good work!)
Glory be to God for dimpled thighs,
For bellies rounding out like ships in sail;
For nipples of all colors upon breasts that swell;
Scars, stretch marks and incisions; glistening hair;
Bodies rounded and soft–fold, hollow, and curve;
And all shapes, the square, the luscious, the trim.
All things counter, original, queer, strange;
Whatever is wobbly or strengthened (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; strong, tired, able or less so;
We live in our bodies whose beauty is past change;
Praise them.
Me too, meowser. Maybe we should sing songs of our fat.
Thanks, wellroundedtype2 and buttercup!!