lost zat loving feeling

by Arby

Back when we had Great Victory
in Twenty Sixteen,
I was happy as Baltic clam
with pearl in-between

Seeing ze election went
exactly as planned,
I took first flight back to
Glorious Motherland

Spent one week by Black Sea
oiling my gears,
then got right back to
sowing doubt and fears

Facebook, Twitter,
nothing was off limits,
misdirection campaigns,
subliminal gimmicks

Carefully orchestrated
ze Mueller investigation,
fed ze flames, then derailed it
to ze Dems’ great frustration

Would have been child’s play
to do it again
but Tovarish Trump couldn’t
stay in own lane

What good is having
Manchurian Candidate
with a fragile ego
ze size of a…

been a long nine months

been a long nine months,
hasn’t it, my friends?
a roller coaster ride, with
hairpin turns and bends

high and hopeful one day,
gutter-bound, the next,
gasping in bewilderment,
virus-whipped, perplexed

I jotted down my first
pandemic-fueled rhymes
in the early days of March
to mark those hazy times

‘wash your hands for
twenty seconds,
resist if hand
dryer beckons

lest you disperse
harmful virus
to an unsus-
pecting iris’

these verses grew into
The Coronavirus Song —
and the inspiration oozed
like vapors from a bong

then came the song parodies,
man, they’re such a blast!
hotbeds for ideas sprung
from our collective past

I even snuck a bit of
prose into the mix,
and tried my best to
steer clear of politics

forgive me if I view the “now”
through a bittersweet lens,
but don’t get me wrong, y’all
I’ll be happy when it ends …

the obligatory animal rhyme

four song parodies

fairy-tale-inspired fantasy fiction

a collaborative burst of senatorial satire

a handful of original rhymes

and the bonus, this one in my native Hungarian

the Sunday morning concession tweetstorm, as a Shakespearean sonnet

by Donald J. Trump

He won because Election Booths were Rigged
NO VOTE WATCHERS, OBSERVERS WERE ALLOWED
My loyal Red State fans are super ticked
On this alone, Joe is DISQUALIFIED!!

The Lamestream Media wants me to croak
They won’t report on hordes of evil dead
Unearthed just long enough to cast their vote
Recall, without them I was WAY AHEAD!!

That shady firm Dominion is to blame
Bad reputation, tallies gone awry —
In the pockets of the Left — NO SHAME
Without them, I won Texas by a mile!!

Don’t hold your breath, I’ve only just begun
Concessions are for pussies — I still WON!!

I have the best sonnets

and here is the Sunday tweetstorm

NCiR’ THROWBACK TUESDAYS

I submit to your sweet spell

by Joe Váradi

Twinkle, twinkle, little bell
I submit to your sweet spell

When you shine your gleaming white
All in the world seems just right
Little green dot your companion
Finer sight than the Grand Canyon

What a classy congregation —
You two are my validation
Antidote to my frustration
Writer’s block annihilation

But when you stay grey and dark
With no punctuation mark
Not a clap to comfort me
Emptiness is all I see

Twinkle, twinkle, little bell
I submit to your sweet spell

thanks to Amadeus for the original melody

an acrostic “golden shovel”

T here’s that old Frost standard, about two
H ypothetical woodland paths, roads
E qual at first sight, that diverged

R ather allegorically, featured in
O ne of literature’s most misconstrued verses, a
A nomaly, wherein trees conceal views of the wood
D eceptively clever and

N uanced, I concede I —
O nly recently learned what I
T oo, through my formative years, took

T o be the comforting, inspirational message, the
A ccepted meaning, of proud self-assertion, instead of the one
K ept hidden in plain sight, more cynical and less
E vident: that it’s chance who shapes our paths traveled
N o matter how we embellish our stories, by and…

an ambivalent anthem for our times

Got a Feeling ’21 Is Gonna Be a Good Year
…
You didn’t see it
You never heard it, not a word of it!
You won’t say nothing to no one
Never tell a soul
What you know is the truth

I think I may have found the anthem for our times.

A melodic, schizophrenic earworm that encapsulates the current zeitgeist.

It’s a bit of a stretch — the song was written for the 1969 psychedelic rock opera Tommy, by The Who. The titular year that the performers are hopeful about is not 2021, but 1921. Captain Walker, M.I.A. for years, has finally come home from the war, unexpectedly. …

a sonnet for Daniele

t’was 6 o’clock, an early Alpine morn
as I awoke with urgent need to pee
bare naked as the day that I was born
with curtains drawn, my eyes could hardly see

foggy-eyed, I let my instincts lead
my sluggish body down the corridor
swept swiftly by my urologic need
reached for the knob, dashed quickly through the door

and as I heard the latch behind me close
I realized what an error I had made
for I was standing void of any clothes
out in the street, without an ounce of shade

a kindly stranger did not laugh, nor gloat — 
she flashed a smile and handed me a coat

Grüß Gott!

here’s the inspiration, a very amusing and revealing confessional by Daniele Ihns … Dany you didn’t mention where this takes place, so I imagined it in a proper, old-fashioned Austrian town in the Alps

for more sonnetry:

a Millennial song parody of “Kiss Me”, by Sixpence None the Richer

Ping me —
be sure to scroll my Insta
Nightly …
check out my Facebook post
Swipe, swipe —
right on my Tinder profile
Open my Snap before it … disappears

ㅤㅤO-oh, ping me —
ㅤㅤmy social feed is lonely
ㅤㅤRetweet me, to all your online friends
ㅤㅤLift your scrolling hand
ㅤㅤLight up the screen and make the cursor dance
ㅤㅤSmartphone apps sparkling —
ㅤㅤSo ping me

Ping me —
upvote my Yelp reviews
Surprise me …
link to my Quora page
Hashtag, (hashtag)
I think I’m going viral
I’ll be a landmark on your Google Maps

ㅤㅤO-oh, ping me —
ㅤㅤmy social feed needs lovin’
ㅤㅤRetweet me, to all your online friends
ㅤㅤLift your scrolling hand
ㅤㅤLight up the screen and make the cursor dance
ㅤㅤSmartphone apps sparkling —
ㅤㅤSo ping…