Geeky Bitterness

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

It’s enough that I sweat, waft moisture away,
Expect customers to demand monies back,
Bring pet gerbils to family gatherings, also
Head to state parks for much needed vacation;
Any vehicle that takes me places serves if
Given sufficient dollops of new C++ code.

Concerning each time a department member
Wanted my suspenders to keep socks anchored,
Bulimic-looking girlfriends sated, also their
Dogs content with hastily sprung clay pigeons,
My software equivalent of changing tires,
Replacing oil, got recurrently shortchanged.

“Alternate realms” doesn’t mean insalubrious wine,
Sea stories repeatedly used to produce syrinxes,
Other manners of pox, cute diseases, odd rashes
Apropos to pea quiche, lemon drops, tomatoes.
When I strive to produce nuanced interactions,
Hearts break, consoles crash, friendship expire.

Saponaceous Byways

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Daughters of physicians, engineers, university teachers, and junior military officers,
Moved to better apartments where drunk inventors of word medleys paraded wisdom,
Devolved hygiene.

As for other mundanes, predators, also sky warriors, boys earned college educations abroad.
Outsiders entirely, they pursued remedies, inconspicuously, for expensive bath salts’ dearth,
Especially as regarded India.

Profligate families, wasteful in ambitions concerning crowd-sourced monies, plus funds
Meant for working class cronies, remained tenacious, became able to proffer glycerin Solutions illegal in some cities.

Thereafter, especially when masks were banned, with the effect that entire treasure houses
Were deaccessed of those artifacts, turgid laws concerning cultural exchange got enacted.
Bribe free fecundity became criminal.

Getting lost in crowds, via facial cloaking, other camouflage, more so popularized guile
Directing social climbers to jump, else become transfixed by the sound of offices emptying,
Phosphates notwithstanding.

Envied like so Many Flamingos Missing Carotenoid

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

In contrast, yesterday’s enlivened “communication,”
Opened up politics which otherwise served warmongers,
Who envied like so many flamingos missing carotenoid.

Disputes that lasted for several laundry cycles,
In one corner of that sovereign homeland,
Perpetuated more regular instances of danger.

Again, tendencies toward sterility of thought,
Encouraged no dialogs among occupied persons,
Failed to balance proffered battle opportunities.

You see, authenticity’s yet iconicized in shiny things.
Unpleasantness still gets perpetuated on YouTube.
Civilization’s bunk, like elephant waste, remains destructive.

If only more frequent instances of safety,
More wholesome depictions of self (suited to esteem),
Got broadcast, we’d find peace among paupers.

Until such a span, reality, online, and in paper form,
Smirks at little children stuck on isles of limited serenity;
Enjoys sticking its tongue out at witnessed victimhood.

Freaky Frog King

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Freaky, grotesque, malformed frog,
Upon your slimy stool,
Why promote such warty ways,
Your bayou place, your rule?

You liege of dirt, decrepit, foul,
You fetid beast of earth,
Monarch ‘or tainted bowels,
Sullied passages of firth.

No untarnished throne of gold,
No robe of flowers fair,
No sun-covered royal aides,
Attend your dank, dark lair.

Yours remains an ailing land,
Sewage, tar, smoke, plus pox,
Your dais sits on caving sand,
Your kingdom’s silt and rocks.

However, your odd, speckled skin
Hides a cure most rare,
Thus, homage piles up near your feet
If only for a share.

Wonders of the wider world,
Hide in shocking pots,
Thorny or toxic jugs,
Tend to ferry lots.

Judgments based on airs, it seems,
Weigh by foolish coin,
Breed life’s greatest fears,
But leave answers yet stillborn.

I’d rather kiss a goat, a ram,
Than seek your putrid healing,
Nonetheless, in most things grand,
Aspect’s not revealing.

So, amidst the mire, the muck,
I search your ectothermic pleasure
I kowtow your fossorial might,
I beseech your marine leisure.

Yield your poison juice to me.
Caress my digits nimbly.
Noxious serum’ll set me free,
Venom will discharge me duly.

After Twenty Years, Towels Fray

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

After twenty years, towels fray, limnaea creatures, too, wonder water’s worth.
Invisible hedgehogs’ hibernacula, alongside many kinds of patient editors,
Begin despising sassafras roots, fairy wings, wee pieces of acorn pancakes,
Even as strutting alongside thoughtful rivers of binturong fur, answered shouts,
Thunder, lightening, electrical storms, photoshopped regolith, plus tooth decay.
Critters longingly gaze at yesterday’s métier while their eyes go chalcedony.
Only dogs, maybe hyenas, purple smoke, kaleidoscope cries, dead moths embrace
Such self-determination as found in “abuse survivors,” “darlings,”  “wise pensioners.”

Consider, at street level, various costermongers shout bananas and cherries.
I’d have taken that from their barrels had you not insisted on boutique affections.
Hence, I made due with bull fiddle when loving needed mandolins.
I wanted to yield, to ordering in Chinese noodles, to buying guquins,
To run around our suite buck naked, save for old kimonos lent by our concierge.
Instead, you recalled antiques’ costs, wanted no restrictions to our private parts.
You esteemed that laws of intimacy exist as they do, especially officially.
Further hazarding, like ions with unpaired spins, might fetch paramagnet powers!

Until tomorrow, more harmatttans blow toward New York , bring trash.
Babble fishes continue divulging multi-linguistic laconic expressions.
Mustelids organize blues bands, red specks, green-marked shells, recruit
Insect warriors, randomly, afterwards orienting them in fields of thermal holocaust.
School secretaries keep on calling parents to seek kids’ field trips permissions.
Secret suns saunter, too, as well as do polarly matched elements. Meanwhile, beauty
Spots noted for ferule-styled reinforcements, abandon rest to sleeping villagers.
Motorcades, jazz clubs, elephants, all blithely disregard matters of mestizo heritage.

On balance, burying problems in haymows, reveals moist spots where tree bits harbor.
Leafy brightness, in dark spaces, makes sebaceous any sugar-coated examinations.
Relationships evolve epigenetically, unstructured eggs plus wiggly sperm cause potential.
Normally, truth churns through public potholes, skips before knee hauling in toxins.
Most Twozans leapfrog through forests, past Oenomelian lakes. Alogonquins
Dance, end purposeless ballet sessions in an aebleskiver manner. Miles displace grip.
Our choices remained informed, guided, put to ease, sidetracked, by cenotaphs,
Until we rowed in daisies, got trod upon by emotional peacocks. Liaisons take work.

Psychological Trials

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

None of the late day spies were possessed with more than loyalty to handlers,
Until such thoughts made the rounds of bars, parked cars, drug dens, coffee shops.

One mighty example of espionage missed, altogether, the perspective of mothers,
Who regard teenagers as lingering liabilities, chow hounds, sources of domestic entropy.

Coupling clandestinely in a government apartment meant going AWOL,
Rejecting assignments, spoofing mentors, turning backs, paying hazard prices.

If only academic fervor might drive pawns like him toward collection points,
She would have had merely to ask for course corrections, without safeties.

Nonetheless, “helping restore political balance” brought along bikinied dividends,
Economic stimulus packages, disproportional amounts of bribes, buried treasure, laughs.

Even the Rainbow Tank’s Fish Saluted

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Even the rainbow tank’s fish saluted,
As the secretary determined which,
Among languages, best suited
Environs, where civics, education,
Like so much fashioned violently
By a disgruntled minority (aided
With roads, healthcare, employment,
Hope, sustenance), altered relevance.

Every six months, the landlord collected,
No matter if young children’s toileting,
Or parents’ clear beverage cans silently
Witnessed intruders pry open windows’
Bars, cut door latches, abscond, disappear,
Carry away utensils, rugs, rings, computers,
Transform humble dwellings, structure new
Caravansaries for safehousing loutish men.

Draped in an ulster, Grandmother called
Quietly, assigning chores, classes, meals,
Forced political revenants to again dissolve,
To disband “community” broadcasts since
Tainted factotums composed rumors,
Networked citizens, planted falsehoods,
Drank up tears plus orbital motions, life;
Expectorated happiness, safety, gratitude.

Our captains sometimes misappropriated
The Holy Land’s reliable ingredients,
Invited outworlder bandits to capture,
To record, to film transpirate feelings.
Mistakenly, officials summoned “truths”
Beyond reason, vitriol-shaped stories,
Hurtful movies, bile-laden sound bites,
False, bitter, representations. Mendacities.

Never mattered whether media made sense.
Faith’s valuable raw properties advance us,
Bring constructs revealing universal blueprints,
The Almighty’s hand, heavenly master plans.
Immense earthen openings still engulf rebels,
Sort out lesser baddies with quick death by
Divine fire. There’s no consolation elsewhere;
Service to The Boss means enforcing limits.

Throughout the Beginning of Social History

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Throughout the beginning of social history,
Yaacov’s sons distinguished here as holy.
The ways of prayer would cover all. No
Bashing, no exclusivity, no slurs; just unity.

Contemporary settlers’ demographics, too,
Amass thinking, speaking, acting towards
Each other as balance against muddled facets,
Quantifiably garnering lives free from canards.

Honor, again and again, gleans conscience,
Behooves cleaving to forefathers’ wisdoms,
Provides an ongoing purchase of miracles,
In local buildings glistening with sandstone.

Decebrate postures, those funky oppositions,
Faith improperly functioning, trendy rhetoric,
Disobedience to The Book, The Boss, Truth,
Omit vital spiritual nutrients, clinch iniquity.

When all of the nations turn against Israel,
Reflecting predawn eternity, we’ll run, greet
Messiah’s world without dressed up religion.
From the straits, we’ll call upon The Name.

Returning to Egypt with a Clean Lute

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

I believe in heroes and nickelodeons, shyamalaned goings on,
Stocking stuffers, yellow violets, scapulas used as paperweights.

See recycling typing papers, buying rugose dogs, rewriting, repeatedly, sijos,
Plus remembering to breathe whenever sitting on quaggas, as good.

Revisiting steam tunnels, though, rots. Trial by fire, at most ivy-type colleges,
Leaves bridges out, invites vexatious buddies, excludes useful syllabaries.

Subsequently, ill-tuned heckle phones, sanguine monsters, coruscating dungeons,
Starry nights, opossums, random wage workers, all posture as sublimated beauties.

Buskers, perennially busy, fret, their tattered salwar kameezs notwithstanding.
They know that many adolescents’ day care providers fashion bilkis, smoke weed.

Cognitive limits imposed by cartouches, concordanced information, carry on as stale.
Mathematical concision, dirty laundry, pots of junket, yet deprive childhood innocence.

Few grasp that protecting the young matters; violetwood, as impressed upon by bores,
Unless oiled and dry, brings an abundance of enceinte. Confervae grows tendons.

Runny viscous substances, too, as determined by librarians, scatter precious treens.
Most times, collections of indolent lizards lose value, despite academic obligations.

Pulp remains literature’s costume jewelry, slimy wind instruments, again and again,
Befriend no one, not even wild ducks, not even tenured deans, not even piebald ponies.

Donning Tallisims

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Confusing religious symbols with laws,
Wearing icons, but not donning tallisims,
Means, ultimately, using selvedge to ornament.

Commentary on Aristotle, or on Tisias/Corax,
When wrung out by middle-aged moms,
Sings the wonders of gravitas hedgehogs.

Select departments’ found materials craftsmen,
Like fathers returning from sugar caning,
Give the finger to civility’s appurtenances.

Naïve fellows learn ways to deconstruct,
If speaking balderdash with university students.
Mimetic to a one, they generate cosmic tumult.

Some affirmative debaters miss, during cross-x,
Social seams joining voguing friends, elephant tusks,
Idolized triptychs, vacant bedrooms, winning lotteries.

Rubicons, east of The Missouri, bring
Timeshare tips to retired villagers wont to catch
Swinging caffeine-free artists’ consciousness.

Recusal, maybe scholarships in photography,
Addiction, obdurate women, office music,
All remain accessible to teens and twenties.

Accordingly, working as a science writer
Continues on better than reviving twinned poems;
Tumid prose rarely attracts markets’ evil luck.

Twinkle Stinking Little Star

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Twinkle stinking little star,
You evil nighttime fiend,
Ill-results are all you want
From our domestic scene.

We won’t yield to your beacon
Bend toward your brackish throne,
Give in to you sinful whim,
Yielding hearth and home.

Cosmos-style complexities
Might bury us in dirt,
Yet your malevolence ways
Won’t mark our greatest hurt.

Beyond your ceiling flicked with light
Dwell noble hearts and souls.
Your slight criminal intent,
In contrast, ain’t that bold.

Those Intricate Pastel Patterns

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Those intricate pastel patterns,
Swirls, spots, other markings,
Resemble best select rodent-friendly
Moments, when cats get thwarted.
Small measures of violence,
That fill webs dangling succulent
Prey formed from clerks, clerics,
Pedestrian sorts, often portend death.
Academic know-how remains
Impotent against crisply cool
Insurgents bent upon children
Suffering via “good” truncheons.
Other armaments, tools, devices
Fail to kill, leave footprints.
Such payoff, compromised, brings
Lethal, but innovative slayings

Quaternary Glaciation in the American Midwest

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Quaternary glaciation, in the American Midwest, brought more than buckets of cold.

That formal giving over of difference, constituted by obliged change, resulted in enabling.

(Caliphates were excluded from such causality by dint of bribes or religious immunity).

Maledictions of less than a century in duration, remained, nonetheless, preeminent execrations;

Artistic types, ensconced in Las Vegas, readily posted that such imprecations evoked Tophet.

(Material wealth remains as nothing more than doggerel at that otherworldly train station).

Simultaneous to participating in seminars in the field of literature, some nubile youths popped

Klonopin; their publication-rich professors ignored those highs, knowing only Xanax.

(Complacent students were less a curse than were nontraditional students intent on learning).

Consequently, restocking pharmaceutical wonderlands meant sellers culled no titillation.

A significant part of commerce continued to be their sober fiduciary growth opportunities.

(Marketeers necessarily responded to life as it was rather than as we wished it to be.)

It’s Not about the Sex

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

It’s not about the sex, about the fecund smell of vanilla, vervain and hops.
One bus stop’s bridegroom, moon-faced, gleams at his intended.
She, a hairdresser, glows with words, storytells her boyfriend.
That ever-so-ripe woman’s belly belies commercial incident.

The pair grasps that objects, not tools, forge social cartels from church people,
Cause community college jocks to take responsibility for spasms of mentations,
Bring about immediate and complete interventions from boxing instructors,
Prevent nice children from going full throttle against other undeveloped sauceboxes.

On alternate generic shelves, as well in comestible shops, and on popple trees,
Publications containing tidbits on plighting one’s troth, without toxic chemicals,
Sans physically distressing manipulations, devoid of stuffing choice mailboxes,
Gets snatched up by trouble-making fancy pants, their mothers, some albondigas chefs.

Holding hands, for the purpose of adoring liquid gold or inflorescence blossoms,
Interesting local papers in stories about sticky comforts or sycophantic civil servants,
Touting local populace’s more complicated daily tasks, exposed toes, or flaxen ways,
Forces select practitioners to regard uncial jottings, squirrels, kittens, fishes, and curses.

Pain, accordingly dissipated, might allow sleeping, eating, caring for mice, mountains,
Defending invaluable lab equipment, rippling peace through laundry, daffodils, thunder,
Sniffing herbal analgesics, calling distant relatives, disfiguring cold-hearted armies,
Maybe trying out some new, shellac-based nail polish, while embracing pencil pushers.

What’s more, eventually, children abrogate, often with great aplomb or ballet solos.
Their mental constructs, though, remain empty of regret for openly behaving
Past esculent mores, beyond laggy sabots, clear of high leveled adolescent glamour.
Position, ever after, in most disposable cultures, leads to matrimony.

The Pantyhose Horrors of Summer Internships

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

The summer of ’79’s facetious fun
Meant typewriter trauma, all manual,
Pantyhose horrors, thirty-five cent buses,
Faux pas built on office politics.
Most female interns floundered,
Stenography was a practiced art,
Supervisors were necessarily hung.

Jogging suits felt groovy,
Wall phone came in colors,
Coffee machines squirted choice,
Copy machines were dreams.
Big Bosses smiled at curled hair,
Painted lipstick, also mascara,
Executive lunchroom politics.

Work like a dog, think like a man,
Nod like a lady, fret like a child,
Expect people beyond PR,
To misunderstand (a lot).
Call shipping. Call shipping.
Read the newspaper,
Peruse dictionaries. Blow gum bubbles.

Call the west coast, Call the east,
Sneak a peak, without computers, at lists
Of your friend’s fathers’ promotions,
Twirl your extra office chair.
Get regular haircuts, manicures.
Memorize the company song.
Polish introductions, use white out.

These days, flat-screened, run-on realities dictate time sharing.
Gender preferences hide, other demographics slink, all LinkedIn aliases.
Working from home, bunny slippers, tea, hangovers, absorbs the populace.
Maybe, perhaps, what if, a girlie elected an international commerce.
Would jet planes, transatlantic software systems, avatars suffice?
Contemporary time zones function as so much punctuation;
Interns, now, get paid to update technology, upload themselves.

Little Intrusion

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Little intrusion,
Few understand small noises.
Less, the thoughts of men.

Plastic Surgery

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Sane people do not pay others
Money to slice open their faces,
Leaving slits for inserting foreign
Substances, but not straws, cigarettes,
Lovers’ fingers, or chocolate.

Such affinage is better left
To professionals extirpating
Moral conduct, personal responsibility,
Loyalty to ethics, apple pie, Mom.

Those entrepreneurs macerate beauty
Hard won through birth, sex,
PTA meetings, carpools, sag,
Unequal pay, intimate wanderings.

Rather, surgical amberjacks ought
To be caught, gutted, fried on a high
Flame, enjoyed while wrinkles,
Adipose tissue, also spots, set in.

Day-old Cakes

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Specific populations neveraccept day-old cakes, half price tickets, pugs,
Preferring, instead, to makethe most of bounteous landscapes framed in museum pictures.
Otherwise, galleries would be “sooooMidAmerican;” persons couldn’t attempt separating
Marshmallowfluff, laundry, also irregular type fonts from the task of working,
Especially when bound by the interpersonal intelligence of nuttering quolls,wombats, pregnant llamas.

A different type of car, ones with dark windows, new plates,tinted glass, hidden locks,
Might, for such matrons (accustomed to babbling to theirnightstands’ lamps),
Rectify rather frighteningsituations, could possibly teach their youngsters to extinguish fires.
What’s more, in contemporary times, the advent of: circusowners, Tibetan monks,
Back country witches, togetherwith crazed researchers, still causes cacophonous stock pricing.

Whereas staff able to avertsuch customer flinders entertain gracious notes from patrons,
It remains our chore toapplaud their clever applications, our jot to encourage their targeted
Adaptation of obliviousblathering, poised ostentatiousness, awkward remittances.
Alternatively, we jeer clerks, who give poor prizes orcomplain, get canned, smacked,
Receive epitaphs neither flattering nor coordinated to theirsweatshirt collections.

So, while shrugging, we spewabstractions to audiences from institutes of contemporary art,
Act as if no disadvantage is meaningful;pretend, in hindsight, there were never hidden costs.
Personifying good-bees makesus forget that real ringleaders pay managers, reducedto lecturing
Chemistry,lots of money, especially when their charges are expatriates or remotehousing contractors.
It’s better to suckle the beliefthat able relations are built from compassion than to try to understand.

Sounding off aboutstoichiometry or about poorly populated phylums, after all, stymies evenbunnies;
Brings tauntings about tumbling‘round the Middle East, about wading in the charity-garneringfountains.
Advisably, one disregards the caterwaulingof dumpster cats, the flights of fledging lizards, traffic.
Entrepreneurs will continue tobid against elderly patrons, will truncate worthy lessons, serious mentations.
Hush sweet baby, run the water,shut the door, pick up the towels and toiletries, shake, pray.

Your Hushed, Stealthy Looks

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

Sudden fruit swells leaf circles,
Moves bits of brown, sweeps red, then pulls

My heart as does your blue-green-gray
Sparkle. I return my shine your way.

Little nut-gatherers, we steal
Autumn’s fresh treasure, through our appeal

For surplus. Your hushed, stealthy looks
Catches mine near housework, brooks

Lashes, lips, freckles, smiles; we praise
Cool seasons, bright nights, shortened days.

Whose Brutality

by KJ Hannah Greenberg

On the mountainside,
Where morals slide
Past snowy sheep tethered
To numbered customary behaviors,
Unscrupulous men win.

Their often hidden places,
Locations, where duplicitous faces
Seize citizens marching,
Wobbling past
Yesterday’s righteous.

Within familiar mysteries’
Staggering, jagged histories
Form from broken terracotta.
Few remain alive;
Kindnesses get forced.

The hospitality of water snakes,
Stoppages and famine makes
Believers from discontents.
Otherwise, troubled power shifts
To entertain effacing rebels.