Best Wordplay Poems

You’re a poet, as they say
All you write is poetically full of art
Wince when you read your stuff
As from literacy you stand apart
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Some days are meant for marshmallows
Such light and puffy stuff
Time for tossing words about
For phenomenal fun with fluff
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Bumptious
Scrumptious
Totally presumptuous.
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These are humorous epigrams: puns, wordplay, quips, zingers, japes, jests, gags, giggles, one-liners, irony, etc.
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Useful idiots
All around.
And they failed to
Understand me.
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Insight... is only superseded by foresight,
which in truth is an out-of-the-box sight-

of thinking, brainstorming, eyes phased and sideways,
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Accomplished verse must whizZ
Zestfully forwards as imagination's fleA
Bites author's itchy fingers. Cells greY
Yearn to coin expressions. Gift of gaB
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This tale describes how Israelites all grumbled
at God and Moses in the wilderness.
Although they all by biting snakes were humbled,
God cured them by a magical process
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As gifts to Solomon the Sheban Queen
brought lavish presents, Cushite gold
and precious stones and incense, clearly keen
to prove that she would not withhold
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EARLY POEMS: JUVENILIA
by Michael R. Burch

These are early poems, most of them written between the ages of 11-18 and some published in my high school literary journal, THE LANTERN. Other poems were written later and several of those were published in my college literary journal, HOMESPUN.
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My Grandpa is incredible,
he's a mountain of a man;
He's kind and wise and sensible,
and does everything I can!
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These words ring in my ears as I dream of a meaning
I'm hungry to post, have another heart taste,
such, that promise of sex might not tempt me at all!
Hark! Sharp uptake of breath from freak's mind at a phrase,
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we speak often...
of revolution, yet
we almost never speak,
of the old woman left alone,
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New Runny Babitt (For Tanja)

While you were writing
serious wordplay,
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All poems are love poetry.
Love of language and wordplay;
Love of order and rhyme;
Love of lines and rhythms
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A word was born, some years ago,
Perhaps from Mister Marlowe’s pen.
Will Shakespeare stole it for his play.
The groundlings picked it up that way.
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I like to play tricks with words,
Because they feel so much better than

The tricks I played with you.
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ALPHABET ARTISTRY
Able acrostic artist’s alignment adds air.
Alliteration asks acknowledgement aware,
Bard’s brain bequeaths benchmark billet, blends braid bans blare,
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XYLOPHONIC RESONANCE HE LICKS ENIGMATIC
Kindly refer to notes. and see Temptations and Poetic Pizza Extravaganza below :)

Xylophonic Resonance
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Wondrous whirling worlds of words
Wander away.
Smooth musical tunes from the Muses melt my mind
And make my heart go boom.
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The uneaten satsumas
sat there all day

as we played
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Some write for glory and for fame.
I write because I am obsessed
and wordplay is my favourite game.
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In evening I need
to speak with my small voice
to fill my dreams with moon.
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He says he doesn't feel like working today.
It's just as well. Here in the shade
Behind the house, protected from street noises,
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How do poets get their ideas and simply write and write,
Dismissing all their doubts and fears and sharing day and night?
It doesn't matter what they've penned when editing's not done,
But this I tell you, as a friend, editing sure is fun!
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The most important of the lot is when we take exams,
It's then we study theme or plot, and when each student crams,
To learn the structured styles of verse and rhyming schemes as well,
Perhaps reciting to rehearse as poems cast their spell.
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What makes a poem what it is and recognised as such?
Is it announcing joy or bliss, as if these count so much?
Is it a sense of savoir faire, a touch of elegance,
A precious phrase beyond compare, of perfect eloquence?
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The tale I have to tell, children,
is not a pretty one – so,
PARENTAL SUPERVISION IS ADVISED;
though on the other hand,
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The tale I have to tell, children,
is not a pretty one – so,
PARENTAL SUPERVISION IS ADVISED;
though on the other hand,
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Before he hired Vivien Leigh
and said he wished to have Clark Gable
star with her, David told Max he
must write what only he was able,
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I’ve heard that Large Blue butterflies can mimic
ants, as I can poets like Charles Simic,
and lay its eggs on flowers of wild thyme
as I lay words on verses that must rhyme
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In her rosy nakedness born blind,
in front of two round hillocks close behind,
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How nice to have a sister who is older
to care for one from birth until one passes
into another world, where blood is colder
and madding crowds no longer throng in masses.
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I opened for the one I love
“Hello! ” and my belovèd melted
away. I looked below, above,
but in the dark he'd helter-skeltered.
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While the Santa Ana blows,
air conditioning can’t cool
all the sloppy Janes and Joes
who aren’t swimming in a pool.
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Banal, obtuse, flat wrong sometimes,
when I pontificate I try
to be redeemed by clever rhymes,
but when my failing thoughts don’t fly
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In midlife we are served a set of cards
that are less promising than those
we played in springtime of our youth, like bards
presumptuously pre-empting prose.
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Some raise eyebrows, some raise roofs,
some offend and some evoke
applause from multitudes. Aloof,
I smile, and make a private joke.
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Rabbi Eliezer listened to a voice
from heaven, which had little merit.
He said that if he had no choice
he’d also listen to a parrot.
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Dionysus, born in Greece,
in Persia first was recognized;
in Greece the god had been despised
until they learned that wine brings peace
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Cleanliness they say is next

to Godliness. No text
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To find oneself within another, while
another is within
oneself, is what defines the loving style
of games that are win-win.
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An Ode to Hip-Hop: The Call and Response One Hot Jalapeño Emcee Velvety V.I.P. Nacho Cheese. The Pomp & Circumstance Turntablist Ears to the Street Canonize The Beats. The Pageantry of Mic Bravdo,
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Award winning poem crafted with precision,
From the finest wordsmith's concoction,
To capture the readers eye,
And move them to agree with I,
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Love is the everything that always will be.
Love is the nothingness sent here to kill me.

Love will bring life and eternal vigour.
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Vampires, Vampires, Vampires

Put vampires in your writing
These days it’s all the rage
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These are poems about families, poems about mothers and their children, poems for mothers and their children, and poems for fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers as well...

Mother's Smile
by Michael R. Burch
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Free verse, they call it. But is it really fully free?
As language looms large like a secret-police state
Dominating, dictating, dulling unfettered thought
In unsuspended sentences of stultifying strict syntax,
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Music is blood that runs through the veins of a lyricist
Music is that sound that doesn't live in the heart of a racist
Melodies that puts the soul at rest is music
These melodies brings joy which the soul cannot resist
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Whitman isn't in
He will not be in
This year or the next
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Life delivering resemblance of the past like a deja-vu
Taste sour like a lemonade because you don't choose your fate
Heaven a promise but we forgot it has a gate
Even God's approval won't accommodate sinners like me
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A challenge is impending
An urge to prove, or improve
The zest to grow, n' not just pretending;
Or best to stick to lies
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A poetic warrior with a ball point sword
A typewriter dagger to lose he can't afford
The computer screen or the note pad are his battle field
Inspiration from others are his strong sturdy shield
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My heart is heavy laden
a wide array of vernacular wordplay
has a choke hold on me
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Sonnets from the soul
revealing truths never told
the worth of a woman
the design of a man
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Poetry should be said by a confessor
On his way to be a professor
Unapproved by the priest
Banned by the government
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So many people ask me what it is that I do with my life
I say with a nonchalant grin “I write”
And then they all say the same thing “so what you a rapper”
I say no I’m a poet then in comes the laughter
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βέƦẙḽ Dṏṽ scripsi.
Et in derisum.
Et secuti sunt Iesum.
βέƦẙḽ Dṏṽ wrote.
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Poets.
Got the next hot
T-shirt on the block.
The punchline perks.
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Old Pantaloons, a Chiasmus
by Michael R. Burch

Old pantaloons are soft and white,
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With a Dribbling Pen and a Fertile Pad
My Poesy burst Walls, My Eid thought were Hard
And as I maul through them Wordplay like Cheese
I moan 'Practice Sets them Words- clear at Ease.
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We each develop a character
In life
Acting out a personality
We created
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Harken fellow brothers and listen to me tell
Of bravery and courage and evil as well
It is the tale of Ynot the Minstrel
Whose gift of word came from the gods
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Poetic poetica!
words play wordplay
oh what a world of poesy
of controlled uncontrolled
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Wordplay or just honest say?
Plenty in mind,  Hit on replay
Keep me guessing,  Is this your way?
Not much longer,  I think it can stay
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Whitman isn't in
He will not be in
This year or the next

He's gone out
Far out where the two
Americas meet like kissing whales

Beyond the net
Of the universities
Whitman celebrates his absence

Old grampus
Without a postmodern
Stitch on him he reads himself

Sitting naked
On leaves of grass
Sounding his barbaric yawp

Forever thirty-seven
And in perfect health chewing
The heads off dandelions and theorists

Which right-thinking critic
Would not like to put to sleep
This unconcerned ecologically hazardous

Phallogocentric brute
Once and for all in that
Endlessly rocking cradle of his?

But damn Whitman!
There's no putting him out
He says his sex contains all bodies, souls

This his self-description:
Stern, acrid, large, undissuadable
And help! Also draining the pent-up rivers

Of himself
Into women and demanding
Perfection from his love-spendings

Whitman alters
What he grandly calls
The base of all metaphysics

His gods
Are stones and sinews
Or an occult Brahma encountered

Interminably
Far back on that reckless
Passage to India descending radiating

His incantatory texts
And striding back and forth between
Vaunt'd Ionia and Sanskrit and the Vedas

Affected by a chronic logorrhoea
It's clear the fellow abhors silence, babbling
All the time of puzzles to be solv'd and blanks to be fill'd

Blissfully ignorant
That erasure is essential
Words treacherous and that doubt wafts in every human soul

Ah how I'd like
To introduce Walt to wordplay
Brackets and all the joys of paranomasia

How he'd love it too!
Whit(e)man caring not a whit
Careening down passion's witless slopes

Waltzing with Whitman
Could be such fun but he flatly
Refuses to rise to all my intellectual baits

He says he will not be
Darken'd and daz'd by books any more
He will steer for deep waters only and the farthest

Shore
And, sorry, poor dullards
Noodling in the groves of academe

Whitman will not
Be in this year or the next
It's the uncharted courses he's out to explore!
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Damn, I just had the worst day/ had some turd say/ that my wordplay/ was third grade/ because I wouldn't curse hate/ but there's no worse fate/ than a fake verse spake/ to send you through reverse space/ I think ya'll need a word brace/ before you crumble like the world trades/ and you can end up in a hearse case/ if you disperse waste/ so put away your purse mace/ and nevermind who's first place/ I've loved this ever since I heard 'Face/ and keep up on it at an absurd pace/ and if this was all a bird race/ I've got two fingers right in third place/ so learn grace/ and see how every word's placed/ I turn rage into pages/ and make you nervous like a first date/ I'm an irate/ primate/ hot headed like desert climate/ I thirst lakes/ my nerve's ache/ and in the worst case/ I'm violent/ a giant/ causin' earthquakes/ from the first state/ all the way to the universe's birthplace/ mostly silent/ and defiant/ in the face of the law 'cause I aint buyin' it/ threw me in the wild/ expectin' me to die in it/ but I crawled outta the lion pit/ now I've got a child cub I've sired/ and a lioness/ the magnifier/ of my desire/ who I inspire with/ the strength I have acquired/ and all that I require's this/ my family is my entire bliss/ and if you think that makes me tired/ shit/ I'll fill my mouth with gasoline and spit the hottest fire/ bitch/ punch you in the iris/ with an iron fist/ your spinelessness/ has spread like wildfire/ viruses/ but I resist/ and climb ever higher/ immune to piousness/ and liars/ and I aspire/ to remain riotous/ until the day that I am finally dust/ I insist/ to assist you/ in your decision/ to desist fool/ before I rip you/ a new one in your cranial tissue/ I take issue/ with the misuse/ and abuse/ I have been through/ solely because that is what men do/ so I invent who? / Syrax the maniac in my mental/ I'm actually a brainiac/ who act's like a devil/ in fact/ I'm on my way back/ from an attack/ on your central/ nervous that my system is not impervious to men who/ pretend to/ befriend you/ then when it comes time to defend you/ they just end you/ just like my pad and my pen do/ lyrically rend you/ into so many pieces that nobody could mend you/ I defeat legions with my pencil/ and only swear allegiance/ to my regents/ who have been true/ throughout the seasons/ from ninety four to the most recent/ decent/ men and women who I respect for many reasons/ angels and heathens/ I love you all the same and forgive you of your treasons/ we all have our demons/ I have so many that I can even feel 'em breathin'/ and screamin'/ when I'm sleepin'/ or daydreamin'/ inside my head and I can't beat 'em/ but I need to defeat 'em/ so I can proceed to my freedom/ I just need the keys/ and the cure for this disease/ that keeps me beat up.
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This stage and that stage is my stage!
I have been on this stage and that stage, every stage is basically my stage;
My life cycle is like a butterfly, I have gotten many lessons but I am still life's pupil; they say a heart full of hate can never make a lover (Larva) .
With a face like a boy, I always have to show my reg. I seem underage; they wonder how my face and my thoughts could ever merge.
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Words command and compel
Cajole and criticise
Words cannot be recalled
But they are remembered
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If you're tired
And on your way
You're feeling wired
Without delay
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Why must I always do this?
Write a poem in the created style.
Who knows if there's something I missed?
Will it end up lost; forgotten in my computer file?
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Mother's Smile
by Michael R. Burch

for my mother Christine Ena Burch
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Epigrams 5

These are humorous epigrams: puns, wordplay, quips, zingers, one-liners, irony, etc.
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Pack the car
we're going far
We may end up looking like tramps
after staying at all our camps
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EARLY POEMS: JUVENILIA
by Michael R. Burch

These are my early poems, or juvenilia, most of them written between the ages of 11-18 and some published in my high school literary journal, THE LANTERN, and others in my college literary journal, HOMESPUN.
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At its purest
It was a test
For who my heart loved best
At is present its soldiered
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I get the blues then I drink the booze
I drink the brews then I get a bruise
On my food I chews and then I choose
I chill with my crews then I cruise
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Past....imperfect,
Present....tense,
Future....conditional,
Conjugation....irregular.
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I know how it feels when you had your heart broke,
Feels like your heart has crept onto your throat,
Your significant other has been messing with another,
You caught them in the bed and they start to studder,
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Binding him tightly each nightfall
With dexterious craft and skill
In spite of the teachings of artistic tongues
Her words were what compelled him still.
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CANDLEBRA - Christianity and Neoclassicism Do Love Enterprise and Beauty in Religion and Art
-Gayathri B. Seetharam
The Brisbane Sonnet consists of two sestets and a couplet. The original sestet was based on the Hymnal Octave form which has a rhyme scheme of a.b.c.b.a.b.c.b. Two of the b lines are removed and leave a rhyme scheme of a.b.c.a.b.c. by adding another similar sestet d.e.f.d.e.f. and a couplet, g.g., this sonnet form was born.
The Hymnal used an alternating meter Iambic Tetrameter followed by Iambic Trimeter. As the Australian dialect has its own natural meter which is a mixture of Iambic and Anapest the meter was set as just any Pentameter.
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I google "most obscure poet"
and I find poets whose obscurity
has become a brand
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Avot Yeshurun was the pen name of Yehiel Alter Perlmutter, who was born in Neskhyzh, in western Ukraine, in 1904, to a family of Hasidic lineage. When he was five, his family moved to Krasnystaw, which he later immortalized in his poetry. As a young man he read Hebrew and Yiddish literature voraciously—not exactly a Hasidic curriculum of study—and also European literature in Polish translation. (He recalled that the first Hebrew book he read was Les mystères de Paris in Hebrew translation.) Called first to Hebraism and then to Zionism, he immigrated to Palestine—again, not what a child of Hasidism was raised to do—in 1925. For many years he kicked around in various menial jobs, eagerly Levantinizing himself, and becoming sympathetically fascinated by Arab life. He published his first book of poems in 1942, and his last book appeared in 1992, on the day before he died.

Harold Schimmel, who was the first to bring this prodigious poet into English, has justly remarked that Avot Yeshurun has "the most individual tone in Hebrew poetry." Some of this is owed to his lexical and grammatical originality, which never fails to startle. There are no other Hebrew rhythms like his. He regularly shatters Hebrew words into little syllabic cups of meaning. Arabic, Polish, and especially Yiddish words are scattered everywhere in his verse. In his later works he even devises his own system of vowelization. He was, in sum, a great experimentalist—an eccentric giant of Hebrew modernism. And yet his power is never merely formal. The exotic and gorgeous quality of Avot Yeshurun's verse is owed to its raw juxtaposition of experiment with sentiment. Though he writes about the Israeli-Arab realities in which he finds himself, the paramount obsession of his work is nostalgia and its literary transfiguration. The poet is memory's uncannily resourceful servant. Memory provokes rapture, and—since the family that he left behind was destroyed in the Holocaust—it provokes guilt. The "" of which he writes are almost always retrospective—backward yearnings for what is no more. Yet the most common emotions are transformed by the most uncommon poetics. Extraordinary words are discovered or devised for ordinary emotions (ordinary, that is, for a Jew of his time and place). He misses his mother so much that Hebrew cannot remain the same. The low sentimentalist as high formalist: these are pleasures that do not often go together.

These two poems are taken from Adon Menuhah (Lord of rest), my favorite of all his books, which appeared in 1990. The dates at the bottom of the poems appear as they do in the originals (where the Hebrew dates appear alongside them). In "The Son of the Wall," the Polish word przedmiescie denotes the outskirts or suburbs of town (I know this gratefully from Professor Gershon Hundert): and the unexpected centrality of Jesus in the poet's account of his unhappiness prefigures a significant theme of his final book. In "Memories Are a House," the Yiddish words in the last lines, quoted from his mother's letter, mean "I've become sleepy." "Yehiel alter lebn," which may be translated as "Yehiel, may you have a long life," involves a bit of wordplay, since it is also a pun on the son's given name. These Yiddish and Polish words function like relics, like salvaged objects—things from the past that the poet pastes onto the poem, almost as in a collage. The distinction between the abstract and the concrete is magically dissolved in an art consecrated equally to language and longing.
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Think without implying guilt
only then one cannot blame
neither self made by others
or the silly woken shame.
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Wordplay: exchange of thoughts, courage, flight,
destination, pain, fear, sense question, life, get to know, risk, strangers, meet,
coffee shop, hotel, room service, fast food, beach, most beautiful sunsets, walks, hours, oldtimer, spanish towns, language barrier, god, conversations,
search, pain, no answer, lonely seagoing seagull, a lot hiking, jj_mobilphotography, honored, return flight, pain, experience, adventure, grown, comfort, I was there...and all this with: be strong without drama
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By the sticks and stones I pray. Through my blood and bones I behold. Within the center of the circle. I am within I am. Source within me guides my soul. My body only that which has a beginning and an end. My physical consciousness is essential. For it is that which I am in this world. I am not a field of flowers. But i am a blade of grass. I gently catch the dew of dusk, offering it to the new day sun at the very top of my pointed crown. In the center of the circle I am fire. Earth. Air. Water. Spirit is the nature of the divine through which I devour the moonlight and transcend the stars. To uphold righteous creation in its midst between the veil and heaven where we all stand loyal to the throne of the divine. This by the sticks and stones. Is wordplay. This by my blood and bones. Is poetry. This without a doubt ends with nothing. But something deep within says something.what do you believe.
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Echo transmitting sounds through tympanic membrane.
All the way unto the piece cerebrum of the brain.
Sounds trapped by the pinna to the other end.
Sound transferred in words of reason to comforty a friend.
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