All Comments on 'Joke'

0 views, a score of one. Did I upset your little game anon? Here is a riddle, what three things do I have (actually more, but we'll keep it simple) that you don't?

A brain

and balls

ta, ta

I'm laughing, do you want to furnish me with some more amusement?

....is too good to waste on the average anon. Don't be bitter, that's their gig. You get a 5 whether you want it or not, so there. >l<

Tess, twisting.

is your preoccupation with the anonymous reader. That being said, this poem was riveting; an absolute five.

is the type of insane prose I love to read. It makes me feel uncomfortable with words that stab.

Certainly a 5 but then the rating an individual gives to a poem says as much about the person providing a rating as it does about the quality of a poem. An ideologue who disagrees with or is offended by the poem will miss the poem’s power to offend so effectively and give the poem a 1, thus ignoring the intensity of the response the poem provoked. A 1 would normally suggest a poem is so flat that it does absolutely nothing to the reader. Why even bother rating a poem that is simply meaningless drivel.

This poem is intensely powerful in that it lashes out at what the writer finds objectionable without losing control. The words are even more powerful in their short controlled bursts of disdain for the ultimate in mindless hypocrisy and blinding stupidity. Even more important, in terms of quality, is that the voice of the poem never becomes that of a poseur during the delivery of this devastating criticism: the poet is not taking even himself too seriously.

This poem is hardly a joke, it is brilliant.

(I wonder if my giving the poem a 5 is a muted attestation to my own sense of being somewhat superior to the guy giving a 1 . . . my ego stalks me.)

I spent the better part of last night and early this AM thinking about this 12o1. I like stuff aimed at the darker side of organized religions, but in the end it didn't work for me as well as your poems usually do, probably because I still believe there's something beyond a hole in the ground, which is more about content than the medium of expression.

That said, a few things stood out for me: Line 2 beginning with "Pitiful" through line 4 is great phrasing, particularly because "Pitiful" has 2 very different meanings. I like the tension created with the word between feeling compassion and feeling disdain. The more deprecating one really adds to the biting sarcasm and I think works better than "Shitful Sorrows."

"A tissue?....dainty gloved" is great phrasing too, although you could have ended it there. Call me anal retentive, but I don't think "assplug" was needed. Wiping one's ass daintily gloved worked just fine. I wrote a poem once (for a chipbutty challenge I think) about the absurdity of nuns making girls put a tissue on their heads before entering church when they forget to bring a hat. I wasn't sure if you meant something else, but that's what I thought of, and combined with the dainty gloves it reinforced the absurdity.

I take that back. It isn't so much about the absurd in my mind as it is about power and control and one's anger (at least mine) towards religions because of it. "Pray and Pay" in the Judeo-Christian religions is no different than looking towards Mecca and issuing fatwas against infidels, which leads me to my last point. I think the poem could have ended with ".....Run, it's crunch time." The remaining lines bring the reader's back too much to the poet himself, I think. Both the "I" and the "laughing" had already been well-established in the preceding lines in my opinion, and the image of racing to the grave can go in a lot of different directions, and I think that's where it could have ended.

Well, there you have it. If grabbing one's attention and not letting him go was the aim, it gets a 5 from me.

First, your comment about balls and brains made me giggle.... and I don't giggle!

The whole thing is a marvel but this section.....

You can surround yourself with smoke like a cancer

and eat at all that surrounds us. A tissue? Wipe

your ass, wipe your eyes, dainty gloved assplug.

loved....loved....loved it.

A response to greenmountaineer. This is a joke, little more. Here it is, 7,4,11. I thank you for the thought you put into this, and it is a good sign to read more into something that may be there. This is an affectation of a psychopathic voice (see Epitaph 930 by anonamouse, same character) a voice that I can easily slip in and out of. It may have saved my life more than once.

It has nothing to do with religion per se, except as something that the gloved one may hide behind. Notice the hands are clean, the eyes aren't.

Here I also have two cliches, the camel, that I cut off, and the hole is now a comparison. The I and the laughing, I want repeated, maybe the anon reads, I want that echo in that hollow skull. Thus "assplug" because of its manifold of meanings, and none of them positive...

A joke relies on a manifold of meanings...

Thank you, and all that commented.

anon. come back and read it again.

Ho,ho,ho

I read your explanation to greenmountaineer but line 5 I have a real problem with. surround yourself with smoke like cancer? Isn't this rather sloppy? Shouldn't it be "cancerous smoke" or some such construction?

"You can surround yourself with cancerous smoke

that eats at all that surrounds us."

I have to admit, before I read your explanation I thought the poem was about religion. Life does promise so much, delivers so little and then nothing but a hole, religion being something of a sick joke, an attempt to control us by claiming that if we follow a certain truth, life isn't short, brutal and wretched. As if religion knows about anything other than superstition.

I will post as an anonymous because you love it so much. you are anonymouse amongst other sarcastic and pathetic pseudonyms. Your poetry is often brilliant but more oft than naught it is aimed at nameless people whom you believe are the horrible anon yet you post anon comments under your fake names all the time. There was a time I respected you, now you just make me sort of ill. The forum has improved since you've been gone. Adios, comotose

I will post as an anonymous because you love it so much. you are anonymouse ...

that was anonamouse, and I wasn't around here back in may, as a matter of fact, i was

gone for about a year, thank you for the H removal, the weight of fame was pressing down heavy on my shoulders...as for the rest of your allegations...you wouldn't be a part of the mysterious vote loaders from a few years back?

BTW i gave myself a 5, come back and erase it

"Church of Smoke" is really cool. A place of certainty, that amounts to nothing. And "parades of chimeras issue like froth"... It certainly brings "something" to my mind. I also like how you stop the camel line halfway through.

With that said, I feel this poem could use some work with the punctuation. There are places where it seems you want to say one thing, but the way you're breaking it up leads in another direction (e.g., lines 5 and 6). The second stanza I'm not so sure about, I like the first two lines but mostly agree with what greenmountaineer said.

In any case, I really enjoyed seeing this in the forum. :)

Title is important to me. Jokes have an unfunny side - remind me of clowns.

I never thought the poem was about church or religion at all but about delusion or self deception. 'Church of Smoke and Shitful Sorrows' is a great line. I agree with Greenmountaineer about 'assplug', it's not needed. The contrast between 'wipe your ass, wipe your eyes, dainty (daintily?) gloved' is more effective on its own. Don't know whether 'issue like froth' is the best phrase but can't think of a better. The last line and a half loses me a bit . But still worth a six.