Re: This should be fun.

1

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the
beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
Fuck you, Clown

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2

if this should be, i say if this should be--
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird
sing fuck you, clown.

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3

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, fuck you, clown.

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4

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And fuck you, clown.

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5

l(f
uc
k
u

cl
o
wn)
one
l

iness

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6

So I will eat them in a box.
And I will eat them with a fox.
And I will eat them in a house.
And I will eat them with a mouse.
And I will eat them here and there.
Say! I will eat them ANYWHERE!
I do so like green eggs and ham!
Fuck you!
Fuck you, Clown-I-am!

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7

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

Fuck you, clown!

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8

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame:
"Fuck you, clown."

The above is totally unfair, of course, since I believe Auden's early drafts ended each stanza with "fuck you, clown".

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9

...Nor wilt though then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woords and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

Dorothy Wordsworth: Fuck you, clown.

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10

candy
is dandy
but liquor
fuck you, clown!

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11

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations.

Fuck you, clown.

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12

Aw, I wanted that last line indented, to indicate it belonged rhythmically with the second to last, but the indentation didn't work.

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13

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately edict thus decree:
Fuck you, clown.

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14

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet,
And fuck you, clown.

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15

Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider
That sat down beside her
And said, "Fuck you, clown."

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16

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Fuck you, clown."

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17

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But fuck you, clown, it's just a tree.

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18

But most thro' midnight street I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
O fuck, o fuck you all you clowns

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19

They looking back, all th' Eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat,
Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate
With dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes:
Som natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
Through Eden took thir solitarie way,
Fuck you, Satan.
I mean, clown.

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20

Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch. Fuck you, clown.

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21

Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric moved:
To rear me was the task of Power divine,
Supremest Wisdom, and primeval Love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon, and fuck you, clown.

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22

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
to bear your body's weight upon my breast
So subtly is the fume of life designed
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, this poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity. Let me make this plain:
Fuck you, clown.

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23

They dream only of America
To be lost among the thirteen million pillars of grass:
"This honey is delicious
Though it burns the throat."

And hiding from darkness in barns
They can be grownups now
And the murderer's ash tray is more easily--
The lake a lilac cube.

He holds a key in his right hand.
"Please," he asked willingly.
He is thirty years old.
That was before

We could drive hundreds of miles
At night through dandelions.
When his headache grew worse we
Stopped at a wire filling station.

Now he cared only about signs.
Was the cigar a sign?
And what about the key?
He went slowly into the bedroom.

"I would not have broken my leg if I had not fallen
Against the living room table. What is it to be back
Beside the bed? There is nothing to do
For our liberation, except wait in the horror of it.

Fuck you, clown."

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24

"You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you,
you would walk with me always.
But I have noticed that during
the most trying periods of my life
there have only been one set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most,
you have not been there for me?"

The Lord replied,
"Fuck you, clown."

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25

Dontcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
Dontcha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?
Dontcha wish your girlfriend was fun like me?
Fuck you, clown.

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26

And soon with this he other matter blended,
Cheerfully uttered, with demeanour kind,
But stately in the main; and when he ended,
I could have laughed myself to scorn to find
In that decrepit Man so firm a mind.
'God,' said I, 'be my help and stay secure;
I'll think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor!'
He spoke! 'Get off my hill--and, hey, fuck you, clown!"

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27

There once was a man from Nantucket,
whose dick was so long he could suck it.
He said with a grin,
as he wiped of his chin,
"Fuck you, clown."

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28

Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes.
Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green.
Fuck you, Clown!

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29

of s/b off.

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30

And with them eke, O Goddesse heauenly bright,
Mirrour of grace and Maiestie diuine,
Great Lady of the greatest Isle, whose light
Like Phoebus lampe throughout the world doth shine,
Shed thy faire beames into my feeble eyne,
And raise my thoughts too humble and too vile,
To thinke of that true glorious type of thine,
The argument of mine afflicted stile:
The which to heare, vouchsafe, O fuck you, clown.

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31

When you're alone and life is making you lonely
You can always fuck off, clown
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, so fuck off, clown
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?

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32

Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus

he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Fuck you, Mister Clown

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33

4: They fuck you, clown, your mum and dad.

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34

I loved you: love still, perhaps
Is not quite extinguished in my soul,
But let it no longer alarm you;
I do not want to distress you in any way.
I loved you silently, hopelessly,
Tortured now by shyness, now by jealousy;
I loved you sincerely, so tenderly,
May God grant you be so loved by another.
Fuck you, clown.

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35

I so need to stop posting Wordsworth poems--somebody else telling him to fuck off is so clearly the perfect ending to everything he wrote, and Lewis Carroll already made that joke so much better.

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36

The history of my stupidity will not be written.
For one thing, it's late. And fuck you, clown.

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37

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Fuck you, clown!

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38

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting:
"Fuck you, clown."

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39

"I'll deliver all,
And promise you calme Seas, auspicious gales,
And sail, so expeditious, that shall catch
Your Royal fleet far off: My Ariel; check
That is thy charge. Then to the Elements
Be free, and fare thou well--"

"Fuck you, clown!"

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40

Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you,
At incredible speed, traveling day and night,
Through blizzards and desert heat, across torrents, through narrow passes.
But will he know where to find you,
Recognize you when he sees you,
Give you the thing he has for you?

Hardly anything grows here,
Yet the granaries are bursting with meal,
The sacks of meal piled to the rafters.
The streams run with sweetness, fattening fish;
Birds darken the sky. Is it enough
That the dish of milk is set out at night,
That we think of him sometimes,
Sometimes and always, thinking, "Fuck you, clown!"

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41

Orpheus with his Lute made Trees,
And the Mountaine tops that freeze,
Bow themselues when he did sing.
To his Musicke, Plants and Flowers
Euer sprung; as Sunne and Showers,
There had made a lasting Spring.
Euery thing that heard him play,
Euen the Billowes of the Sea,
Hung their heads, & then lay by.
In sweet Musicke is such Art,
Killing care, & griefe of heart,
Fall asleepe, or fucke you, clowne.

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42

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a
saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in a hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his
generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their
education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard, fuck you, clown!

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43

Am I the only one here not too proud to admit I haven't read every poem in this thread?

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44

43: Fuck you, clown.

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45

Or am I the only one who in fact has not read every poem in this thread?

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46

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Fuck you, clown!"

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47

43: do you mean reading them in the thread, or in some other context, in their original inferior versions?

also:
I drive these brothers crazy,
I do it on the daily,
They treat me really nicely,
They buy me all these ices.
Dolce & Gabbana,
Fendi and their Donna
Karan, they be sharin'
All their money got me wearin' fly
Brother I ain't askin,
They say they love my ass in
Seven Jeans, True Religion,
I say no, but they keep givin'
So I keep on takin'
And no I ain't taken
We can keep on datin'
I keep on demonstrating.

My love, my love, my love, my love
You love my lady lumps,
fuck you, clown.

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48

43/45: No.

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49

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy clownèd fuckery?

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50

48: me too.

Everybody else: An especially fun thing to do would be to work into your poem a link to the source, which some percentage of readers will not know. Obvs easy for them to Google but still.

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51

I haven't even read all the comments on this thread.

I nominate "clpwned!" as a word of the future.

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52

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
So fuck you, clown!'

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53

Setting the V.C.R. when we go to bed
to record a night owl movie, some charmer we missed
we always allow, for unprogrammed unforeseen,
an extra half hour. (Night gods of the small screen
are ruthless with watchers trapped in their piety.)
We watch next evening, and having slowly found
the start of the film, meet the minors and leads,
enter their time and place, their wills and needs,
hear in our chests the click of empathy's padlock,
watch the forces gather, unyielding world
against the unyielding heart, one longing's minefield
laid for another longing, which may yield.
Tears will salt the left-over salad I seize
during ads, or laughter slow my hurry to pee.
But as clot melts toward clearness a black fate
may fall on the screen; the movie started too late.
Torn from the backward-shining of an end
that lights up the meaning of the whole work,
disabled in mind and feeling, I flail and shout,
"I can't bear it! I have to see how it comes out!"
For what is story if not relief from the pain
of the inconclusive, from dread of the meaningless?
Minds in their silent blast-offs search through space--
how often I've followed yours!--for a resting-place.
And I'll follow, past each universe in its spangled
ballgown who waits for the slow-dance of life to start,
past vacancies of darkness whose vainglory
is endless as death's, to find the end of the story.
Fuck you, clown.

Mona Van Duyn needed TiVo.

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54

you guys obviously aren't gifted & talented.

...and I think it should be spelled "clpwnæd!"

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55

oh my: clownpoetry.com. can't get the link to the actual poetry to work, but the front page alone makes the site worthwhile.

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56

And someone has to be a little bitch: which poems build towards "Fuck you, clown" and which only end that way?

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57

45: Sweetie, I'm with you. I recognize most, but nothing even like all.

Also, check your voicemail.

Also, here's a link to the MVD poem I used. I remembered the poem, but had to look it up to quote it.

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58

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a "Fuck you, clown!"

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59

I am annoyed that 19 took my poem. Fuck you, JAC. I mean, clown.

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60

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry of "Fuck you, clown,"
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on, saying, Fuck you, Daedalus.

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61

Jack and Jill
ran up the hill
to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down
and broke his crown
and Jill yelled, "Fuck you, clown!"

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62

...thanks all. I mean, Ozymandias and Ariel are pretty strong clues, of course...but I had to google my way to 38 before I could think straight again. I hadn't seen those lines in a decade or more, and it was nice to get them back.

But hey, I'm lazy! And besides, Name That Poet is a different game entirely...

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63

"Clpwned" should be connected to this sentiment.

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64

No linked clues or googling! I'm still trying to figure some (many) out. But Google is necessary for making the comments, of course—no one's memorized Faerie Queen.

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65

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man,
You, with your fresh thoughts
Care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is "Fuck you, clown" you mourn for.

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66

The pennycandystore beyond the El
is where I first
                fell in love
                            with unreality
Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom
of that september afternoon
A cat upon the counter moved among
                          the licorice sticks
               and tootsie rolls
       and Oh Boy Gum

Outside the leaves were falling as they died

A wind had blown away the sun

A girl ran in
Her hair was rainy
Her breasts were breathless in the little room

Outside the leaves were falling
                     and they cried
                                  Fuck you, Clown!

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67

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! fuck you clown.

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68

I am loving this poetry exercise, BUT am I the only one who doesn't think the ending to the 3rd poem linked has absolutely no "fuck you, clown" overtones? Am I reading the right poem?

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69

apostropher clearly wins this; both 24 and 49 are teh awesome.

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70

. . . .
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains, "fuck you, clown."

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71

Onward, anyway:

These hips are big hips.
They need space
to move around in.
They don't fit into little
petty places.

These hips are free hips.
They don't like to be held back.

These hips have never been enslaved.
They go where they want to go.
They do what they want to do.

These hips are mighty hips.
These hips are magic hips.
I have known them to put a spell on a man
and spin him like a fucking clown.

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72

So on we worked and waited for the laughs,
And went without the jokes, and cursed and frowned,
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home, and put a bullet through a clown.

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73

I'm actually voting for Beck's 5.

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74

I ain't lookin' to compete with you,
Beat or cheat or mistreat you,
Simplify you, classify you,
Deny, defy or crucify you.
All I really want to do
Is, clown, fuck you.

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75

Also, I'm a little concerned that we're this deep in and no one has called anyone a clown fucker, or made any jokes about clowns fucking little kids.

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76

72: out-loud laughter.

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77

Sommer, we're only at comment #75. Be patient, you clown-fucker!


(feel better now?)

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78

Brother, I am fire
Surging under the ocean floor.
I shall never meet you, brother
Not for years, anyhow;
Maybe thousands of years, brother.
Then I will warm you,
Hold you close, wrap you in circles,
Use you and change you--
Fuck you, clown.

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79

Au contraire, Silvana -- 72 takes top honors.

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80

I hadn't seen 72 yet when I said 5. 72 is pretty good indeed.

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81

Talking of poetry, hauling the books
arm-full to the table where the heads
bend or gaze upward, listening, reading aloud,
talking of consonants, elision,
caught in the how, oblivious of why:
I look in your face, Jude,
neither frowning nor nodding,
opaque in the slant of dust-motes over the table:
a presence like a stone, if a stone were thinking
Fuck you, clown.

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82

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer's finger fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing. Fuck you, clown.

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83

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer,
Losing my timing this late
In my career?
And where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns.
Well, fuck you, clowns.

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84

Now I lay me down to sleep;
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
Then fuck you, clown.

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85

Sitting on a park bench
eyeing little girls with bad intent.
Snot from his red, round nose
greasy fingers smearing giant shoes.
Hey, fuck you clown!
Drying in the cold sun
Watching as the frilly panties run.
Feeling like a dead duck
Wishing he could get a little clowny fuck.

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86

In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
the raw material of poetry in
all its rawness and
that which is on the other hand
genuine, well, fuck you, clown.

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87

Byron and Shelley and Keats
Were a trio of Lyrical treats.
The forehead of Shelley was cluttered with curls,
And Keats never was a descendant of earls,
And Byron walked out with a number of girls,
But it didn't impair the poetical feats
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley and that other fucking clown.

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88

A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for fucking a clown.

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89

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and to fuck you, clown.

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90

I hope it fucks
I hope it fucks
I hope it fucks you clown.

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91

68: This was how I ran across the poem, if that helps at all (check the first hit).

Or, to change things up slightly:

The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
"Knock Knock" to dirty ears.

"What is that noise? Who's there?"
The wind under the door.
"The wind under the door who?"
I didn't know
that you could yodel.

I still vote for 5, though 72 and others are fine.

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92

This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the timb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience calmed--see here it is--
I hold it towards you. No? Fuck you, clown.

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93

This is quickly moving into my favorite threads of all time. Excellent work, clowns.

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94

I like 89 very much.

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95

wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no grain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the the maid's hand
and stoppeth the spinner's cunning. Pietro Lombardo
came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura
nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin' not by usura
nor was "La Callunia" painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
Came no church of cut stone signed: Fuck you, clown.

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96

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Fuck you, clown! Fuck you, clown!
Thank God Almighty, fuck you clown!

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97

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man,
He cried: Oi! Fuck you, clown!

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98

apostropher: did he who fucked the clown fuck thee?

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99

SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER.

I.

Gr-r-r---there go, my heart's abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God's blood, would not mine kill you!
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
Oh, that rose has prior claims---
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
Hell dry you up with its flames!

II.

At the meal we sit together:
Salve tibi! I must hear
Wise talk of the kind of weather,
Sort of season, time of year:
Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely
Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt:
What's the Latin name for ``parsley''?

What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout?

III.

Whew! We'll have our platter burnished,
Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we're furnished,
And a goblet for ourself,
Rinsed like something sacrificial
Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps---
Marked with L. for our initial!
(He-he! There his lily snaps!)

IV.

Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores
Squats outside the Convent bank
With Sanchicha, telling stories,
Steeping tresses in the tank,
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,
---Can't I see his dead eye glow,
Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's?
(That is, if he'd let it show!)

V.

When he finishes refection,
Knife and fork he never lays
Cross-wise, to my recollection,
As do I, in Jesu's praise.
I the Trinity illustrate,
Drinking watered orange-pulp---
In three sips the Arian frustrate;
While he drains his at one gulp.

VI.

Oh, those melons? If he's able
We're to have a feast! so nice!
One goes to the Abbot's table,
All of us get each a slice.
How go on your flowers? None double
Not one fruit-sort can you spy?
Strange!---And I, too, at such trouble,
Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

VII.

There's a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure, if another fails:
If I trip him just a-dying,
Sure of heaven as sure can be,
Spin him round and send him flying
Off to hell, a Manichee?

VIII.

Or, my scrofulous French novel
On grey paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel
Hand and foot in Belial's gripe:
If I double down its pages
At the woeful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages,
Ope a sieve and slip it in't?

IX.

Or, there's Satan!---one might venture
Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave
Such a flaw in the indenture
As he'd miss till, past retrieve,
Blasted lay that rose-acacia
We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine ..._
'St, there's Vespers! _Plena grati
Ave, Virgo!
Fuck you, Clown!

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100

I'll fuck you up the ass, and you can blow me,
you cocksucker Aurelius and you faggot Furius,
for suggesting that my little verses
are effeminate and not pure enough.
A good poet should be virtuous,
but his verses don't need to be.
Who cares if verses that have spice and wit
are soft and not very pure?
They can also get you going.
I'm not talking to boys here, but to two hairy men
who can't even move their creaky old loins.
Are you two putting me down
just because you've read about my thousands of kisses?
Fuck you Clowns. You can blow me.

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101

L'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante
L'amour s'en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l'Espérance est violente

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
Va t'en faire foutre, clown

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102

A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!"
"Go fuck yourself clown," replied the Universe,

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103

When can their poems drown?
O the wild verse down!
All the site wonder'd.
Honor the comment's crown
And fuck you, clown--
Noble one hundred.
(and three).

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104

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a clown assfucked upon a table

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105

Then cease, bright Nymph! to mourn the ravish'd Hair
Which adds new Glory to the shining Sphere!
Not all the Tresses that fair Head can boast
Shall draw such Envy as the Lock you lost.
For, after all the Murders of your Eye,
When, after Millions slain, your self shall die;
When those fair Suns shall sett, as sett they must,
And all those Tresses shall be laid in Dust;
This Lock, the Muse shall consecrate to Fame,
And mid'st Stars write your clownish fucking Name!

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106

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, fuck you, clowne.

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107

101--That's the one poem that really acts as an earworm on me. Fuck you, clown.

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108

Ooh, I like 106.

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109

BATTER my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new.
I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due, 5
Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weake or untrue.
Yet dearely'I love you,'and would be loved faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie: 10
Divorce mee,'untie, or breake that knot againe;
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you'enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chast, except you fuck mee, clowne.

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110

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no
Inner Resources." I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as Achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me.
Fuck you clown.

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111

Crap. Last line should read:

Nor ever chast, except you clowne, fuck mee.

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112

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the clown fucks,
He fucks for thee.

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113

111 to 109, obvs.

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114

well, you moved out from the city
how come out there?
for a calm, for a calm
did I recall from somewhere
So I could smell the plain old wind
without fabric softener blent in
so i could see a landscape without a fence
so I could hear those clown fucking gents?

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115

The calm
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss
Fuck you, clown.

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116

As I sd to my

friend, because I am

always talking,-John, I

sd, which was not his

name, the darkness sur-

rounds us, what

can we do against

it, or else, shall we &

why not, buy a goddamn big car,

fuck, he sd, you

clown.

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117

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should fuck you, clown.

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118

We hold these truths to be self-evident:
Fuck you, clown.

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119

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
"Fuck you, clown"

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"Fuck you, clown"

our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.

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120

Every
Good
Boy
Deserves to
Fuck clowns.

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121

I will print this thread so that I can give full throat to my laughter tonight. Fuck these poorly-suppressed workplace giggles, they have no place in a healthy, vibrant life. The passengers on the train this evening can shoot me bemused looks of perplexity and annoyance.

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122

Fuck these poorly-suppressed workplace giggles clowns, they have no place in a healthy, vibrant life.

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123

Yes! 21 lovely pages of clown-fucking in my backpack.

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124

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry man's dominion,
Has broken nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell-
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley,
An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me
The present only toucheth thee:
Fuck you, clown.

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125

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
So fuck you, clown.

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126

The sirens are screaming and the fires are howling
Way down in the valley tonight
There's a man in the shadows with a gun in his eye
And a blade shining oh so bright
There's evil in the air and there's thunder in the sky
And a killer's on the bloodshot streets
And down in the tunnel where the deadly are rising
Oh I swear I saw a young boy
Down in the gutter
He was starting to foam in the heat
Oh baby you're the only thing in this whole world
That's pure and good and right
And wherever you are and wherever you go
There's always gonna be some light
But I gotta get out
I gotta break it out now
Before the final crack of dawn
So we gotta make the most of our one night together
When it's over you know
We'll both be so alone

Like a bat out of hell
I'll be gone when the morning comes
When the night is over
Like a bat out of hell I'll be gone gone gone
Like a bat out of hell I'll be gone when the morning comes
When the day is done
And the sun goes down
And the moonlight's shining through
Then like a sinner before the gates of heaven
I'll come crying out, "Fuck you, clown."

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127

Fuck you, clown.

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128

Therefore prepare thee to cut off the flesh.
Shed thou no blood, nor cut thou less nor more
But just a pound of flesh: if thou cut'st more
Or less than a just pound, be it but so much
As makes it light or heavy in the substance,
Or the division of the twentieth part
Of one poor scruple, nay, if the scale do turn
But in the estimation of a hair,
Thou diest and all thy goods are confiscate.
Also, fuck you, clown.

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129

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The clownless again shall be fucked.
Fuck you, clown.

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130

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Get down. We
Fuck clowns.

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131

Every time I'm walking down the street
Some pretty momma stop breaking down on me

Stop breaking down, won't you please stop breaking down
Stuff I got'll bust your brains out baby,
Won't you please stop breaking down.
Fuck you clown.

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132

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it fuck you, clown?

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133

Ooh I like 132.

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134

131 was mine, with some help from Robert Johnson

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135

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The clown cannot hear the clown-fucker;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards a clown, to fuck it?

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136

Clowns have fucked me when we've met,
Loosening their red suspenders.
Time, you thief! who love to get
Sweets into your list, remember.
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad;
Say that I'm no lucky-ducky;
Say I'm growing old, but add-
Clowns have fucked me!

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137

OK, I'm a little surprised at not seeing this one yet. Perhaps because it's been done to death, but someone's got to.

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so fuck you, clown

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138

What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might fuck you, clown!

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139

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Clown of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Clowntenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was a Circus Tent builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Nose of plastic red;
Bring me my Greasepaint of Desire;
Bring me my Wig; O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Volkswagen of Fire!

I will not cease from Clownish Fight,
Nor shall Balloons sleep in my hand,
Till we have built a Circus Tent
In England’s clownèd fucking Land.

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140

137:
I have fucked
the clowns
that were in
the VW

and which
you were probably
saving
for yourself...

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141

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is fucking clowns.

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142

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you - Nobody - too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Fuck you, clown.

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143

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land is mine so fuck you, clown.

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144

Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.

I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America,
and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies,
I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other's necks,
By the love of comrades,
By the manly love of comrades.

For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme!
For you, for you I am fucking this clown.

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145

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“Fuck you, clown.”

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146

Oh, Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestined Evil round
Enmesh, and command the fates to fuck that clown!

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147

142 and 143 are genius.

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148

Why you dissing Eazy?)
'Cause the boy ain't shit
Chew him with tobacco, an' spit him in shit
I crush Ice Cube, I'm cool wit Ice T
But NWA ain't shit to me
Dre beating on Dee from Pump it Up
Step to the Dog and get fucked up
I'm simplistic, imperialistic, idealistic
And I'm kicking ballistics
Having that gang war
We want to know what you're fighting for
Fighting over colors?
All that gang shit is for dumb muthafuckas
But you go on thinking you're hard
Come to New York and we'll see who gets robbed
Take your jeri curls, take your black hats
Take your wack lyrics and your bullshit tracks
Now you're mad and you're thinking about stomping
Well I'm from the South Bronx
Fuck you clown

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149

I realize 148 stepped out of the strict poetry real, but I hadda.

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150

We become. We hum a story as tune,
in sonata form that runes this sphinx-
riddle sequence as notes that the pharynx
fluctuates, to mean.

So “This Nearly Was Mine” assuages,
braced against old loss and war.
Emile de Becque sounds rich with knowledge
of clowns and fucks, before.

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151

For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroaking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, though he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadrupede.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the musick.
For he can swim for life.
Fuck you clown.

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152

Whats your favorite posish?
That's cool with me
Its not my favorite
But I'll do it for you
Whats your favorite dish?
Im not gonna cook it
But ill order it from Five Star
And then I'm gonna love you completely
And then I'll fuckin fuck you discreetly
And then I'll fucking bone you completely
But then I'm gonna fuck you clown
C L O W N

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153

know it - and to know it is despair
To one who loves you as I love, sweet Fanny!
Whose heart goes fluttering for you every where,
Nor, when away you roam,
Dare keep its wretched home,
Love, love alone, his pains severe and many:
Then, loveliest! keep me free,
From torturing and fucking a clown.

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154

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And clowns to fuck before I sleep,
And clowns to fuck before I sleep.

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155

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My clown's countenance
Could not unfuck itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a clown fucked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

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156

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Clowns
Fucked the six hundred.

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157

O clown, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret fuck
Does thy life destroy.

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158

Fuck you, clown —
Standing amidst the blossoms
Is a cypress tree.

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159

The apparition of the face of this clown;
Fucking a wet black bough.

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160

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
Guess I'll just fuck your skull then, clown.

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161

All I know is a door into the dark.
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil's short pitched ring,
The unpredictable fantail of sparks
Or hiss when the new shoe toughens in water.
The anvil must be somewhere in the centre,
Horned as a unicorn, at one end square,
Set there immoveable: an altar
Where he expends himself in shape and music,
Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose,
He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter
of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows;
Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To beat real iron out, to fuck the clown.


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162

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed - -
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free."
Fuck you, clown)

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Fucking marvellous. I salute you all.

Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon."
Said the old man, "I do that, too."
The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."
"I do that too," laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy, "I often cry."
The old man nodded, "So do I."
"But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems
Grown-ups don't pay attention to me."
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
"Fuck you clown," said the little old man.

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I heard a clown fuck - when I died -
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air -
Between the Heaves of Porn -

The Mimes around - had wrung them dry -
And Threads were gathering firm
For that last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room -

I willed my Logins - Signed away
What portions of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed a Clown -

With Day-glo - uncertain stumbling Fuck -
Between the light - and me -
And then the Windows failed - and then
I could not see to see -

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165

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
Kissed a girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
Fuck you, clown

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166

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have fuck you, clown.

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167

Razors stain pain me
Rivers are damp
Acid stains me
Drugs cause cramp
Guns aren't lawful
Nooses give
Gas smells awful
Fuck you clown.

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168

Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die:
I think there be six Richmonds in the field;
Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse and a clown to fuck!

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169

They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter's morn, on a stormy day,
In a Sieve they went to sea!
And when the Sieve turned round and round,
And every one cried, 'Fuck you, clown!'

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Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
that washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Fuck you, clown!

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171

Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why,
then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fuck, my
lord, fuck! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
account?--Yet who would have thought the old clown
to have had so much blood in him.

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On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Fuck clowns 'for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

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Once more into the [clown's] breeches!

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Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual,
Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all with clowns?

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We few, we happy few, we clowns of buggered...

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Because I did not stop for death
He kindly fucked a clown

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176 - "did" s/b "could"

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178

When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married clowns, for thus sings he:
'Fuck you!
Fuck you, fuck you!' O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a clownish ear.

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179

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, baby,
Don’t you know that I love you?
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, honey,
Don’t you know that I’ll fuck you, clown?

Oh won't you come with me
and take my hand?

Oh won't you come with me
We'll walk this land

Please fuck you, clown!

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180

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
Fuck you, clown.

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Clown I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
Clown two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
Clown when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.

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182

154 made me howl.

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183

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, just 'fuck you, clown.'

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Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying Fuck you Clown!

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To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. Fuck you, clown.

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jinx!

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187

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths ... fuck you, clown.

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188

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Fuck you, clown

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To Fedward. Coke!

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190

Well struck, jenofiniquity. (And a big "Fuck you, clown!" to all the new commenters!)

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191

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for a clown to fuck

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If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--fuck you, clown!

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Alone stood brave Horatius,
But constant still in mind;
Thrice thirty thousand foes before,
And the broad flood behind.
"Down with him!" cried false Sextus,
With a smile on his pale face.
"Now yield thee," cried Lars Porsena,
"Now yield thee to our grace."
"FUCK YOU, clown," replied our ace.

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. . . for
Some fifty minutes, that in time would seem

Just long enough to settle wigs and say
I nearly died,
A dozen clowns got fucked.
They watched the landscape, sitting side by side
-An Odeon went past, a cooling tower,
And someone running up to bowl -and none
Thought of the others they would never meet
Or how their lives would all contain this hour.
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:

There we were aimed. And as we raced across
Bright knots of rail
Past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss
Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail
Traveling coincidence; and what it held
Stood ready to be loosed with all the power
That fucking a clown can give. We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.

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But the stars burn on overhead,
Unconscious of final ends,
As I walk home to bed,
Asking what judgment waits
My person, all my friends,
And all these fucking clowns.

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196

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't fuck any clowns yourself.

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Two roads diverged in a wood and I
Took the one less traveled by
Fuck you, clown.

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198

I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the treacherous seducer of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be hid—I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I see martyrs and prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill’d, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these—All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out upon,
See, hear, and am silent,
Except to say, "Fuck you, clown."

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Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has fucked the clown.

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O ye wha are sae guid yoursel',
Sae pious and sae holy,
Ye've nought to do but mark and tell
Your neibours' fauts and folly!
Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,
Supplied wi' store o' water;
The heaped happer's ebbing still,
An' fuck you clown.

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The Bishops and the party
That tragic story made,
A husband that had sold his wife
And after that betrayed;
But stories that live longest
Are sung above the glass,
And Parnell loved his country
And Parnell fucked his clown.

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not too much creativity necessary on this one:

The Clown Chastised

Eyes, lakes of my simple passion to be reborn
Other than as the actor who gestures with his hand
As with a pen, and evokes the foul soot of the lamps,
Here’s a window in the walls of cloth I’ve torn.

With legs and arms a limpid treacherous swimmer
With endless leaps, disowning the sickness
Hamlet! It’s as if I began to build in the ocean depths
A thousand tombs: to vanish still virgin there.

Mirthful gold of a cymbal beaten with fists,
The sun all at once strikes the pure nakedness
That breathed itself out of my coolness of nacre,

Rancid night of the skin, when you swept over me,
Not knowing, ungrateful one, that it was, this make-up,
My whole anointing, drowned in ice-water perfidy.
Fuck you, clown.

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If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Futuere Maccum.

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204

Love is anterior to life,
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, but
Not if you fuck a clown.

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205

Typing. Too slow! Brain. Too full! My hour in the Garden is posted here.

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Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.

Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, so fuck you, clown.

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Rah, I thought about the Rubaiyat, but only got as far as:

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou, Clown.

When you got wine and verse and a romantic garden and a clown I think we all know there's only way the evening's gonna go.

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What poet would not grieve to see
His breth'ren write as well as he?
But rather than they should excel,
He wished the fucking clowns in hell.

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209

On longer evenings,
Light, shill and yellow,
Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses.
A thrush sings,
Laurel-surrounded
In the deep bare garden,
Its fresh-peeled voice
Astonishing the brickwork.
It will be spring soon,
It will be spring soon -
And I, whose childhood
Is a forgotten boredom,
Feel like a child
Who comes on a scene
Of clowns fucking,
And can understand nothing
But the unusual laughter,
And starts to be happy.

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Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant fins the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and fuck you, clown.

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The music almost died away . . . then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill . . . then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell . . . and to that clown I say fuck you."

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When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man's estate,
With hey, ho, &c.
'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain, &c.

But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, &c.
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain, &c.

But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, &c.
With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
For the rain, &c.

A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, &c.
But that's all one, our play is done,
And we'll strive to fuck you every day.

(The Clown is implied.)

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maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles; and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

fuck you clown

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214

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Fuck you, clown.

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LXXIII
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read:
Fuck you, clown.

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216

I think that I shall never fuck
A woman lovely as a clown.

A clown whose shiny nose glows red;
A jingly clown-hat on its head.

A clown that juggles pies for hours;
Climbs in and out of tiny cars.

A clown that may on-duty wear
An orange fright-wig for its hair;

Upon whose feet enormous shoes
Are really desperate to amuse.

The girls are boring in this town,
Oh God I want to fuck a clown.

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My apologies to Ogden Nash.

To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.
Fuck you, clown.

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218

One cuckoo sings
Then responds another
Between two mountains
Fuck you, clown


Hmm. The haiku limps at bit at the end there, doesn't it?

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One cuckoo sings
Then responds another
Between two mountains
Fuck you, clown


Hmm. The haiku limps at bit at the end there, doesn't it?

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Oops. Sorry about that. Hit it twice.

To make it up to you:

Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle: she died young--fucking a clown.

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216 is pretty awesome.

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J.J.
M.M.
W.G.Du P.
Took great
C/0 his M*****
Though he was only 3.
J.J. said to his M*****
"M*****," he said, said he:
"You-must-never-go-down-to-the-end-of-the-town-
if-you-don't-go-fuck-a-CLOWN!"

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Buying The Whore
Anne Sexton

You are the roast beef I have purchased
and I stuff you with my very own onion.

You are a boat I have rented by the hour
and I steer you with my rage until you run aground.

You are a glass that I have paid to shatter
and I swallow the pieces down with my spit.

You are the grate I warm my trembling hands on,
searing the flesh until it's nice and juicy.

You stink like my Mama under your bra
and I vomit into your hand like a jackpot
its cold hard quarters.
So Fuck you, clown.

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I hear Gilbert & Sullivan occasionally played this game:

(Pirates of Penzance)
I know the Kings of England and I quote the fights historical,
From Waterloo to Marathon in order categorical,
In short in matters vegetable, animal and mineral,
Fuck you, clown.

(The Mikado)
I am so proud,
If I allowed
My family pride
To fuck you, clown.

As someday it may happen
That a victim must be found,
Fuck you, clown.

And there is a secret history of Japanese haiku in this vein:

In the center ring
The Ringmaster sweeps his arm,
Shouting: "Fuck you, clown."

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I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
Fuck you, clown

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someone up there says it works for any Auden poem. Same goes for Dylan.

Go melt back into the night, babe,
Everything inside is made of stone.
There's nothing in here moving
An' anyway I'm not alone.
You say you're looking for someone
Who'll pick you up each time you fall,
To gather flowers constantly
An' to come each time you call,
A lover for your life an' nothing more,
But it ain't me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,
Fuck you, clown

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227

Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and fuck you, clown.

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I've got no deeds to do, no promises to keep
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me
Clown I fuck you, all is groovy

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To-day we have fucking of clowns. Yesterday,
We had barely legal teens. And to-morrow morning,
We shall do it in schoolgirl outfits. But to-day,
To-day we have fucking of clowns. The Japanese
Market can’t get enough of clown-porn.com,
So to-day we have fucking of clowns.

This is the bondage sling chair. And this
Is the other bondage chair, which we will not be using,
Not with the clowns. Bondage is a different fetish,
For which the clowns must be paid extra. Joe the cameraman
Trains on the clowns his camera, silent, uncomplaining,
For which he too will have to be paid extra.

This is the waiver, which is always signed
Before we get started. And please do not tell me
That any of the clowns are backing out. It is not at all easy
To find clowns for these videos. This is a business
Not a game, sunshine. I won't let anyone tell
The clowns they’re free to back out.

And this you can hear is the fucking. There’s going to be some
High-pitched squeaking, as you can imagine. One clown is thrusting
Rapidly backwards and forwards. The clowns are getting
Really into it. And rapidly backwards and forwards
Joe’s fumbling his camera. How embarrassing and unprofessional;
Joe’s getting really into it.

People get really into it; there are stranger fetishes
Out there on the Internets; like the furries,
Or the vores, or the dickgirl-people, or the amputee thing,
Which is where I draw the line; and the clowns don’t mind
Fucking in the back garden while the videotape rolls and rolls
For today we have fucking of clowns.

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Wow.

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This thread makes me realize how little poetry I've read.

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232

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Fuck you, clown.


(Sorry that it's not strictly poetry, but it just seemed to fit.)

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Teofilo, if you haven't already figured out you're New York sleeping arrangements, I meant to say awhile back that you could e-mail me. I also forgot what dates those arrangements would be for.

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So that's the kitten everyone's always talking about. Delurking is fun!

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Thanks w/d. Thanks also to everyone else who offered. It looks like I'll be okay, but I'll let you know if something changes.

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Oh, and it'll be the first weekend in August. Specifically the Friday night.

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Our Bog is dood, our Bog is dood,
They lisped in accents mild,
But when I asked them to explain
They grew a little wild.
How do you know your Bog is dood,
My darling little child?

We know because we wish it so
That is enough, they cried.
And straight within each infant eye
Stood up the flame of pride.
And if you do not think it so
You shall be crucified.

Then tell me, darling little ones,
What's dood, suppose Bog is?
Just what we think, the answer came,
Just what we think it is.
They bowed their heads. Our Bog is ours
And we are wholly his.

Oh sweet it was to leave them
And sweeter not to see,
And sweetest of all to walk alone
Beside the encroaching sea,
The sea that said
fuck you, you little clowns,
And never yet drowned me.

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PS 229 rocks!!!

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Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end with "Fuck you, clown."

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In the great green room
there was a telephone
and a red ballon and a picture of
the cow jumping over the moon.
And there were three little bears
sitting in chairs and a little toyhouse
and a young mouse
and two little kittens and a pair of mittens
and a comb and a brush
and a bowl full of mush
and a quiet old lady who was whispering,
"Fuck you, clown."

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The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next to last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent,
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (fuck you, clown!) like disaster.

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242

240: Awww, that was PK's favorite when he was small. Did you do it from memory?

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243

The Libestod from Tristan and Isolde:

How softly and gently
he smiles,
how sweetly
his eyes open -
can you see, my friends,
do you not see it?
How he glows
ever brighter,
raising himself high
amidst the stars?
Do you not see it?
How his heart
swells with courage,
gushing full and majestic
in his breast?
How in tender bliss
sweet breath
gently wafts
from his lips -
Friends! Look!
Do you not feel and see it?
Do I alone hear
"Fuck you clown"?

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244

Some say the world will end in fucking,
Some say in clowns.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fucking.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction clowns
Are also great
And would suffice.


Huh?

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245

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time,
thought, O fuck you, O clown!

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246

Felix is kicking some serious but very weird ass.

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247

Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
and how the wind doth ramm,
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Fuck you, clown, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,
So 'gainst the winter's balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm,

Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

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248

242: Yes. It's part of Noah's bedtime ritual. I can also do Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb and The Going to Bed Book.

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249

248: Dum diddy dum diddy dum dum dum. Oddly, I still know that from my own childhood; PK doesn't have it.

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250

Goodnight room
Goodnight moon
Good night cow jumping over the moon
Goodnight light
And the red balloon
Goodnight bears
Goodnight chairs
Goodnight kittens
And goodnight mittens
Goodnight clocks
And goodnight socks
Goodnight little house
And goodnight mouse

Fuck you, clown.

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251

It occured to me earlier today that that book might be responsible for PK's mouse obsession.

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252

What about If you give a mouse a cookie?

(Fuck you, clown.)

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253

Remember, remember, the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and crowne
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever fuck you, clown.

alt.

I have never been so insulted in all my life
I could swallow the seas to wash down all this bile
First you run like a fool just to be at my side,
and now you run like a fool but you run to hide,
and fuck you, clown.

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254

...
Take up the White Man's burden,
And reap his old reward—
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard—
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:—
"Fuck you, clown."

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255

252: We didn't get that until after the mouse obsession. But with Goodnight Moon he used to always look for the mouse in each picture, and the favorite was the all-black picture with the white circle with the mouse in it.

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256

236 - Wait, Teo, Friday night? So when should the meetup be? I thought you had said Saturday? (Either works for me but just trying to get plans straight.)

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257

Thoghte I, 'this is so queynt a sweven,
That I wol, be processe of tyme,
Fonde to putte this sweven in ryme
As I can best'; and that anoon.
Fucc you, Clowne .

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258

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed. Fuck you, clown.

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259

Friday would be best, either in the afternoon or evening.

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260

(That was the "Poetry in Motion" on the subway home from work today. Seemed fitting. I believe I am now going to reflexively add "fuck you, clown" to every poem I read, much like "in bed" to fortune cookies.)

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261

259 - I suspect you'd get a better turnout for evening, if that won't cramp your other plans too much.

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262

No, that's fine. My only other plans so far are lunch with family on Friday. I may want to meet with some of my IRL friends, if any of them are around (some won't be), but I could easily do that in the afternoon.

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263

Another meet-up?

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264

New York City, Friday, August 4. Whoever shows up gets to meet the illustrious me.

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265

Years ago, I saw the Bindlestiff Family Circus in San Francisco and they led us in a singalong that was wonderful-yet-distrubing, which has been wired into my brain since.

Don't sleep with the clowns
I know you are tempted
to let privates be nuzzled
by soft, bulbous nose

Those whose hearts hunger
for clown meat go under
a spell, for which no cure is known

What's a lock of hair? a pint of blood?
your leg or your arm?
when you're in love
with a clown!

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266

264 - I'll put something up on the main page. Since it's on a Friday, people will want some notice, I think. And since some people (me, at least) thought it was Saturday, it would be good to clear up confusion.

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267

Thanks.

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268

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single clown in possession of a large red nose must be in want of a good fucking.

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269

"Sons of Atreus," he cried, "and all other Achaeans, may the gods who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach your homes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for her, and fuck you, clown."

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270

Thus held they the funeral of Hector, fucker of clowns.

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271

258, is I believe, the only Poetry in Motion on any 4,5, or 6 trains lo these past several months.

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272

Redeemed were the forests, the beasts and the men,
And only the vulture dared again
By the far, lone mountains of the moon
To cry, in the silence, the Congo tune:—
"Mumbo-Jumbo will fuck you, clown."

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273

"Mumbo-Jumbo" s/b "Mutombo"

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274

Our secret Mineshaft signal for the meetup should be "who wants to hoo-doo Mutumbo?"

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275

Can I tell you how crushed I am that Unfogged doesn't show up until the fifth page of results for "Who wants to sex Mutombo?" We are getting no love from the hoohole.

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276

Try doing a post with that title. That's how I moved from the fourth to the first page for "underwater sex."

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277

I never saw a purple cow
I never hope to see one
But I can tell you anyhow
Fuck you, clown.

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278

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Fuck you, clown.

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279

"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

"But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him and he at me,
And killed him in his place.

"I shot him dead because -
Because he was my foe,
Just so - my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although

"He thought he'd 'list perhaps,
Off-hand like - just as I -
Was out of work - had sold his traps -
No other reason why.

"Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to fuck a clown."

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280

Good bread
Good meat
Good God
Let's fuck a clown

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281

I fucked a clown in Reno
Just to watch him die.

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282

To fuck a clown, or not fuck a clown: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or take arms against a sea of clowns
And by opposing end them? To fuck: to clown;
No more; and by a clown to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural clown-shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To fuck: a clown;
To clown: perchance to fuck: ay, there's the rub

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283

By now our joke's run past its first designs.
Sought for much after that, it will be found
Either to have gone sneaking underground
(And taken with it all the clever signs
That sprouted in the comments a month ago,
Like ghost of subtlety in a ghost of know)--
Or flourished and come up in catchphrase lines,
Weak verbiage that is built upon and bent,
Even against the way its meaning went.
Its origin is left in fading archived threads
Of which remain in google only shreds--
A joke to none but who remember long.
This as it will be seen is other far
Than with jokes taken otherwise in the wrong.
We fuck the clowns we fuck for who they are.

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284

I couldn't wait to get here again this morning to read of more clown-fucking.

Felix is kicking some serious but very weird ass gets it exactly right, & the Goodnight Moon old lady whispering obscenities made me laugh very loudly and then have to explain myself to my son.

283 is brilliant - where did it come from?

I woke up this morning with this in my head:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, fuck you, clowns!

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285

Speaking of poems from childhood:

I had a little dog his name was Dofi,
I had him every since he puz a wup,
I taught him how to stand on his lind fregs,
And fuck you, clown.

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286

Two clowns diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not fuck them both
And be one fucker, long I stood
And looked up one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how lay leads on to lay,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two clowns diverged in a wood, and I--
I fucked the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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287

Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD:
"I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously;
horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.
The LORD is my strength and my might,
and he has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
my father's God, and I will exalt him.
The LORD is a warrior;
the LORD is his name.
Fuck you, Clown."

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288

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll fuck the clowns on our own side.

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289

Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?
Fuck you, clown.

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290

Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
Fuck you clown," she said.

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291

You promised to be
The world's conscience
But, at the brink of bottomless shame,
You're shooting not at King
But at your own conscience.
You're bombing Vietnam
And also your own honor.

When a nation's going dangerously insane
It can't be cured of its troubles
By hastily prescribed peace.
Fuck you, clown.

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292

Dark and lonely on a summer's night.
Fuck my clownlord. Fuck my clownlord.

Watchdog barking. Do he bite?
Fuck my clownlord. Fuck my clownlord.

Slip in his window. Break his neck.
Then his house I start to wreck.
Got no reason. What the heck?

Fuck my clownlord. Fuck my clownlord.

F-U-K-K my clownlord!

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293

292: dagger aleph, if I suffered under the yoke of a clownlord, I too would try to break its neck. I have my dignity.

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294

292 has killed me.

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295

And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say
Fuck you for being a clown
Fuck you for being a clown
Fuck you for being a clown
Fuck you for being a clown

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296

Honestly I was just coming in here to do a "Naming of Parts" rewrite.

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297

You'd be hard-pressed to top Felix's rewrite.

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298

They called it Bozo—and I was there
To lubricate, find holes, and to strap on:
[...]
Now view yourself as I was, on the spot--
With a slight kind of dildo. Do you see?
Like this ... You wouldn't hang me? I thought not.

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299

297: Apostropher, thank you. I've had that one rejected by so many journals I thought it would never find its niche.

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300

Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will fuck you, clown.

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301

People are putting up storm windows now,
Or were, this morning, until the heavy rain
Drove them indoors. So, coming home at noon,
I saw storm windows lying on the ground,
Frame-full of rain; through the water and glass
I saw the crushed grass, how it seemed to stream
Away in lines like seaweed on the tide
Or blades of wheat leaning under the wind.
The ripple and splash of rain on the blurred glass
Seemed that it briefly said, as I walked by,
Something I should have liked to say to you,
Something... the dry grass bent under the pane
Brimful of bouncing water... something of
A swaying clarity which blindly echoes
This lonely afternoon of memories
And missed desires, while the wintry rain
(Unspeakable, how many clowns I've fucked!)
Runs on the standing windows and away.

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302

I know certain people hate the "ain't we wonderful" comments, but this thread has been one of the most entertaining things I've ever read on the internet. I fuck love you clowns.

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303

Well the kids are all hopped up and ready to go
They're ready to go now they got their surfboards
And they're going to the discotheque Au Go Go
But she just couldn't stay she had to walk away
Well New York City really has it all oh yeah, oh yeah
Sheena is a clownfucker
Sheena is a clownfucker
Sheena is a clownfucker now

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304

Are you the clown?
No, I'm Mary fuckin' Poppins.

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305

Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore;
Twenty-eight young men, and all so friendly:
Twenty-eight years of womanly life, and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank;
She hides, handsome and richly drest, aft the blinds of the window. 195

Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah, the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you;
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather; 200
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long hair:
Little streams pass’d all over their bodies.

An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies;
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs. 205

The young men float on their backs—their white bellies bulge to the sun—they do not ask who seizes fast to them;
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch;
They do not think whom they souse with spray.
They fuck the clown anyway.

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306

I've continually checked in on this thread, and I have to say, I think LB's 130 hasn't gotten its due praise. It has that certain hint of Chappelle to it.

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307

Clown. Why masters, have your instruments been in Naples, that they speak i' the nose thus?

First Musician. How, sir, how!

Clown. Are these, I pray you, wind-instruments?

First Musician. Ay, marry, are they, sir.

Clown. O, thereby hangs a tail.

First Musician. Whereby hangs a tale, sir?

Clown: Marry, Sir, by many a wind-instrument that I know. But, masters, here's money for you: and
the general so likes your music, that he desires you for love's sake, to make no more noise with it.

First Musician: Fuck you, Clown.

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308

Three hundred comments and we're still ostensibly on-topic? Is this the Thread That Would Not Be Derailed? My kingdom for a cock joke.

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309

We've fooked with many clowns acrost the seas,
An' some of 'em was hot an' some was not:
Like Pierrot, Wavy Gravy, the Grimaldis;
But ol’ Fuzzy was the hottest o' the lot.
We got our ev’ry ha'porth's worth off 'im:
'E squatted in the scrub an' 'fooked our 'orses,
'E sucked our sentries off at Sua~kim~,
An' 'e played the cat an' banjo with our forces.
So 'ere's ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, while the circus is in town;
You're a dodgy entertainer but a first-class fookin’ clown;
We gives you your certificate, an' if you want it signed
We'll come an' 'ave a romp with you whenever you're inclined.


(I don't know what a cat and banjo game is but it sounded dirty enough without alteration).

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310

I bequeathe myself to the dirt, to grow from the grass I love;
If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean;
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged;
Missing me one place, search another;
I stop somewhere, waiting for you,
If only to say, "Fuck you, clown."

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311

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
calling out, "Fuck you, Clowns!"

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312

Sometime during eternity
some guy shows up
and one of them
who shows up real late
is a kind of carpenter
from some square-type place
like Galilee

and he starts wailing
and claiming he is hip
to who made heaven
and earth
and that the cast
who really laid it on us
is his Dad
And moreover
he adds
It's all write down
on some scroll-type parchments
which some henchmen
leave lying around the Dead Sea somewheres
a long time ago
and which you won't even find
for a coupla thousand years or so
or at least for nineteen hundred
and fortyseven of them
to be exact
and even then
nobody really believes them
or me for that matter
You're hot
they tell him
And they cool him
They stretch him on the Tree to cool
And everybody after that
is always making models of this Tree
with Him hung up
and always crooning His name and calling Him
to come down
and sit in on their combo
as if he is the king cat
who's got to blow
or they can't quite make it

Only he don't come down
which is why some of the cats yelled
Fuck you, clown

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313

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much more crushed into the VW than you thought
And not fucking but clowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too tight for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too tightly packed always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not fucking but clowning.

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314

My son, my executioner,
  I take you in my arms,
Quiet and small and just astir
  And whom my body warms

Sweet death, small son, our instrument
  Of immortality,
Your cries and hungers document
  Our bodily decay.

We twenty-five and twenty-two,
  Who seemed to live forever,
Observe enduring life in you—
  Eh, fuck you, clown. Whatever.

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315

Taking a wee bit of a liberty here, with a little Dylan. Yeah, pretty much any Dylan can come to the same.

She was married when we first met
Soon to be divorced
I helped her out of a jam, I guess,
But I used a little too much force.
We drove that car as far as we could
Abandoned it out West
Split up on a dark sad night
Both agreeing it was best.
She turned around to look at me
As I was walkin' away
I heard her say over my shoulder,
"Fuck you, clown, I'm outta here too,"
Tangled up in blue.

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So, fuck you, clown
And your untouchable face
And fuck you, clown
For exisiting in the first place
And who am I?
That I should be vying for your touch
Said who am I?
I bet you can't even tell me that much

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308. But it is a cock joke.

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318

Creepiest of clowns, the jester now
Is hung like Holmes along the bough,
And stands besides the fairground ride
Wearing chaps of leather hide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at clowns in heat
Fifty springs go far too fleet,
About the fairgrounds I will go
To fuck the clowns all hung so low.

(Didn't quite come together, but whatever.)

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319

Now if there's a smile on my face
It's only there trying to fool the public
But when it comes down to fucking you
Now Homey that's quite a different subject

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320

I am in awe of Felix. I really loved the Owen. The Kipling is outstanding. Houseman anyone?

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320 to 318.

I was trying to come up with something ending "I fuck a dead man's Bozo, Never ask me whose," but gave up, considering that I'm working.

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322

To Lucasta, going to the Wars

TELL me not, Sweet, I am unfunny,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and round hynie
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the ring;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A nose, a shoe, and many-colored thing.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As thou too shalt adore;
I could not fuck thee, Dear, so much,
Fucked I not clowns the more.

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323

Ogged! (flings hands in the air.)

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324

Ring around the rosy,
Pocket full of posey,
Ashes, ashes,
Fuck you, Clown!

(anyway, it scans)

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284: Thanks. I took it from here.

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326

I love the allusiveness of 319.

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327

Ogged!

I couldn't sit this one out, even though laughing really hurts.

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328

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Fuck you, clown.

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329

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: one vast and shiny tent of nylon
Stands in Central Park. Inside on the sand,
Half drunk, our butchy ringmaster works, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that the bastard well those passions reads
Which yet survive, in all of us submissive clowns;
We love it when he mocks us - the heart has needs.
And from the pedestal shouts our emcee:
‘My name is Ringling, Master of Rings:
This is my circus; who wants to sex me?’
We get beside ourselves. Round that great lout
That masterful top - but for greasepaint bare,
Us prone and eager clowns stretch out.

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And in the end
The clowns you take
Are equal to
The clowns you rape.

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331

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare: "Fuck you, Clown!"

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
(FUCK YOU, CLOWN!)

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress,Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor....and FUCK YOU, CLOWN!


Finally, let's be astounded at how many of these charges level at King George III of England 230 years ago apply to King George W today. On behalf of all the free men and women of this once great nation, let me just say, "King George: Don't tread on me. And FUCK YOU, CLOWN!"

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332

eb's 283 is brilliant.

I want to slightly edit apo's 300 as follows:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will fuck you, clown.

s/b

Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will fuck, you clown.

b/c it better preserves the meaning of the poem while still following the rules. Which imho is funnier.

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333

I accept your edit gratefully, Dr. B.

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334

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
 In the sepulchre there by the clown,
 In her tomb by the fucking clown.

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335

Gah.

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336

In the room the women come and go
Saying "Fuck you, Bozo."

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337

I call this one "Ultima Ratio Regum:"

hold the pickle
hold the lettuce
all we ask is that you let us
fuck you, clown.

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338

eb, words fail. Bravo!

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339

331 may indeed win the thread. I'm still partial to 142.

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340

320: Housman?

They tolled the one bell only,
Groom there was none to see,
The mourners followed after,
And so to church went she,
And would not wait for me.

The bells they sound on Bredon,
And still the steeples hum.
‘Come all to church, good people,’—
Fuck you, Clown.


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341

331 may indeed win the thread.

This thread is unwinnable.

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342

Socrates himself is particularly missed -
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed!

Fuck you, Kant.

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343

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (fuck you, CLOWN) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth.

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344

My mistress is a hive of bees
In yonder flowery Garden:
To her they come with loaden thighs,
To ease them of their burden.
As under the bee-hive lieth the wax,
And under the wax is honey,
So under her waist her belly is placed -
And under that. . . hey! Fuck you, clown!

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345

340. Yes. Silent E gets me againe. In penance...


Under the stars the air was light
But dark below the downs,
The still air of the speechless night,
When lovers fuck their clowns.

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346

We shall go on to the end, we shall fuck in France, we shall fuck on the seas and oceans, we shall fuck with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Circus, whatever the cost may be, we shall fuck on the beaches, we shall fuck on the landing grounds, we shall fuck in the fields and in the streets, we shall fuck in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Circus or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the Clownish Fleet, would carry on the fucking, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the penetration of the old.

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347

My bonny lies over the ocean,
My bonny lies over the sea,
My bonny lies over the ocean,
So fuck you, clown.

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348

Come, my songs, let us express our baser passions.
Let us express our envy for the man with a large footprint and no worry about the future.
You are very idle, my songs,
I fear you will come to a bad end.
You jape about the streets, You juggle at the corners and bus-stops,
You fuck clowns for nothing at all.

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349

Clowns are the thing for fucking
To purchase for an hour
And fuck away - no need for words
These clowns have heard it all.

And sweet it is to fuck a clown,
Though sore may be the clap
That could well bring your mood right down,
Be sure to wear a wrap.

I’ve heard it on the internet
The news is all around,
Let every pervert trumpet it,
It’s great to fuck a clown.

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350

driving thru the city

sun thru trees passing
like a million cirque du soleil shows

"Fuck you, clown!"
rolls thru the window

flat on my back on the floor
becoming aware of it
for an instant

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351

[stanzas omitted]

There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all the clowns that birth
From the many-clowned earth
First a little, thence to more
He sampled all her clowny store;
And easy, smiling, seasons sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
--I tell the tale that I heard told
Mithridates, he fucked clowns.

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352

Enfettered, these sentences repress free speech. The text deletes selected letters. We see the revered exegete reject metred verse: the sestet, the tercet - even les scenes elevees en grec. He rebels. He sets new precedents. He lets cleverness exceed decent levels. He eschews the esteemed genres, the expected themes - even when the Welsh tenement renters let the street jesters breed.

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353

I wanna know if i could get to know you
So many things baby I can't wait to show you
I dont know if you feel the same as I do
Give me a sign baby, show me what to do

Can I be all you need
Can I be your everything
Baby the time is now
If you just show me how
to fuck you, clown.

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354

Au clair de la lune,
Mon ami Pierrot
Prête moi ta plume
Pour écrire un mot
Ma chandelle est morte
Je n'ai plus de feu
Ouvre-moi ta porte
Pierrot, va-te foutre.

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355

352 -- fucking awesome.

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356

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe fucked clowne.

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357

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How far the punishment scroll goes down,
I am the master of my fate:
I am saying: "Fuck you, clown."

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358

Mene, mene, tekel, fuckyouclown

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359

Yea, though I walk through the valley
Of the shadow of death,
I shall fear no evil,
For fuck you, clown

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360

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming downs,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I raise my middle finger: Fuck you, clowns!"

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361

I like 360.

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362

Yeah, 360 is genius.

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363

358 is succinct.

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364

It was a bright cold day in April and the clowns were fucking in the street. Winston Smith, his hands clamped over his ears in an attempt to block out the vile noises, slipped quickly through the glass doors, though not quickly enough to prevent a troupe of sticky clowns from entering along with him.


***

'You asked me once,' said O'Brien, 'what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.'

The door opened again. A guard came in, dragging a large cage on wheels. He let it stand in the far corner of the room. Because of the position in which O'Brien was standing. Winston could not see what was in the cage.

'The worst thing in the world,' said O'Brien, 'varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.'

He had moved a little to one side, so that Winston had a better view of the thing in the room. It was an oblong wire cage with a single bolted door. Hanging in the corner of it was something that looked like a leather harness, with cuffs and restraints dangling from it. Although it was three or four metres on either side, the cage was divided lengthways into two compartments, and there was some kind of creature in each. They were clowns.

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365

295: My favorite yet!

Would Cromwell have fucked a clown?

But thou, the war's and fortune's son,
March indefatigably on;
And for the last effect,
Still keep the sword erect:

Besides the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night,
The same arts that did gain
A clown, must fuck the same.

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366

On a fine, bright day I chanced to see,
A circus poster affixed to a wall,
I turned to my girl and said, with glee:
"With you on my arm, I'm walking in tall!"

We came to the big top, past tout and stall,
Ignored the cries of the vendors and geeks,
On polished bleachers we managed to sprawl,
Three rings were in view - beasts, strongmen and freaks.

The crowd grows hushed when the ringmaster speaks,
All the better to hear his raucous cries,
To me he shouted, as red flushed my cheeks,
"You're the part of the horse 'twixt tail and thighs!"

Wrathfully wending my way back to town,
Too late came my riposte: "Oh yeah? Fuck you, clown!"


[Don't bother googling, this one is all me. Pretty meta, huh?]

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367

Dude. Original clown-fucking sonnets? We are not worthy.

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368

I think what you meant, LB is: minneapolitan is banned!

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369

(minneapolitan, around here that's a compliment and shouldn't stop you from posting.)

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366: Holy shit.

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371

Weiner is banned!!

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372

Yeah, there's just something about option expiration weekend that brings out the poet in me.

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373

Gawddammit! Will everyone please stop treating the newbies like idiots? Who gets banned with an exclamation point? Or for doing something good (or harmless(ish), like using an emoticon)? Who believes that they can be banned by another commenter?

Banning is their first in-joke, a good example of the general tenor and style of the place, and is, in fact, a better and more welcoming gift than the fruit basket. At worst, a new person will be a little hurt and a little confused. (As are we all.) He or she will ask openly what he's done wrong, or email one of the posters to ask the same. In either case, he'll be mocked, and from such abasement can be rebuilt into a SuperCommenter, a member of a new army of SuperCommenters whom the posters will deploy, at their whim, to conquer the blogosphere.

But perhaps, Weiner (or is it ibn Weiner?) you don't want an Unfogged Blogperium. Perhaps you hate Unfogged.

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374

The telephone is ringing
I say, "Hi, it's me. Who is it there on the line?"
A voice says, "Hi, hello, how are you
Well, I guess I'm doin' fine"
He says, "It's three a.m., there's too much noise
Don't you people ever wanna go to bed?
Just 'cause you feel so good, do you have
To drive me out of my head?"

I said, Fuck! You! Get off of my clown
Fuck! You! Get off of my clown
Fuck! You! Stop fucking my clown
Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd
On my clown baby

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375

366 made me wet myself.

In honour of my good friend who's here tonight (I'm posting slightly Becks-style):

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandles, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to fuck clowns.

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376


Oh God said to Abraham, "Fuck me a clown"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No." Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this clown fuckin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61."

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377


Oh God said to Abraham, "Fuck me a clown"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No." Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this clown fuckin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61."

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378

Perhaps you hate Unfogged.

Fuck. My fiendish plan exposed!

Also, fuck you clown. minneapolitan (and all the others) get fruit baskets and will like it.

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379

Sorry, "sandles" s/b "sandals" - that'll teach me to cut'n'paste.

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380

Whoops! I fucked that clown twice!

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381

376 is classic! Dylan would be so proud.

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382

To all the clowns I've fucked before
Who travelled in and out my door
I'm glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the clowns I've fucked before

To all the clowns I once caressed
And may I say I've fucked the best
For helping me to grow
I owe a lot I know
To all the clowns I've fucked before

The winds of change are always blowing
And every time I try to stay
The winds of change continue blowing
And they just carry me away

To all the clowns who shared my life
Who now are someone else's wives
I'm glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the clowns I've fucked before

To all the clowns who cared for me
Who filled my nights with ecstasy
They live within my heart
I'll always be a part
Of all the clowns I've fucked before

The winds of change are always blowing
And every time I try to stay
The winds of change continue blowing
And they just carry me away

To all the clowns we've fucked before
Who travelled in and out our doors
We're glad they came along
We dedicate this song
To all the clowns we've fucked before

To all the clowns we've fucked before
Who travelled in and out our doors
We're glad they came along
We dedicate this song
To all the clowns we've fucked before

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383

377, on the other hand, sucks.

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384

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

fuck

  • you, clown.
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    385

    354:

    Au clair de la lune,
    Peirrot repondit:
    Je n'ai pas de plume,
    Je suis dans mon lit.
    Va chez la voisine,
    Je crois qu'elle y est.
    Car dans la cusine
    clowns are fucking.

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    386

    Well there are some sad things known to man
    But ain't too much sadder than
    The rear of a clown when you're ready to pound.

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    387

    You know, I get recasting well-known poems, and even the Bible. But Smokey Robinson? At long last, have you no shame, Apostropher?

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    388

    have you no shame, Apostropher?

    Is this a rhetorical question?

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    389

    Fuck tha clowns
    Comin straight from the underground
    Young mime got it bad cuz I frown
    And not a smile, so clowns think
    They have the right to scrub off by base white

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    390

    373 gets it exactly right. No coddling, people! These new clowns will get fucked, and they'll like it!

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    391

    You tell lies thinking I can't see
    You can't cry 'cause you're laughing at me
    Hey clown, hey clown, hey clown
    How can you laugh while I fuck you, clown?
    How can you laugh while I fuck you, clown?

    Man buys ring, clown throws it away
    Same old thing happen every day
    Hey clown, hey clown, hey clown
    How can you laugh while I fuck you, clown?
    How can you laugh while I fuck you, clown?

    We're all alone and there's nobody else
    You'll still moan "Keep your cock to yourself"
    Hey clown, hey clown, hey clown
    How can you laugh while I fuck you, clown?
    How can you laugh while I fuck you, clown? woo

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    392

    You are all fucking banned.

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    393

    Yeah? Well, fuck you, clown.

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    394

    (Does anyone know why Weiner is being so hurtful these days?)

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    395

    The shock of meeting a bunch of us on Wednesday and finding out we're all 47 year old balding men.

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    396

    Preeninent is one whose subjects barely know he exists;
    The next is one to whom they feel close and praise;
    The next is one whom they fear;
    The lowest is one whom they despise.

    When the ruler's trust is wanting,
    there will be no trust in him.
    Cautious,
    he values his words.
    When his work is completed and his affairs finished,
    the common people say,
    "Fuck you, Clown."

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    397

    I
    Clowns are fucking, Lord, kumbayah
    Clowns are fucking, Lord, kumbayah
    Clowns are fucking, Lord, kumbayah
    Oh Lord, kumbayah

    II
    Why don't you fuck clowns in the road?
    Why don't you fuck clowns in the road?
    Why don't you fuck clowns in the road?
    Why don't you fuck clowns in the road?
    No one would be watching you, why don't you fuck clowns in the road?

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    398

    I got a letter from the government
    The other day
    I opened and read it
    It said they was suckers
    They wanted me for their army or whatever
    Picture me giving a damn
    I said fuck you, clown.

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    399

    317: Bullshit it is! Clowns have no genitalia.

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    400

    394 - Maybe it's not Weiner who's more hurtful, but you who is more easily hurt?

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    401

    392 gets it exactly right.

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    402

    399: Pretend clowns do.

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    403

    399: strasmangelo, this thread is supposed to be a safe space for clowns and the people who love them. Why are you trying to make it into something dirty?

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    404

    402: Clowns are clowns. Pretend clowns are fat men in garish makeup.

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    405

    Bullshit it is! Clowns have no genitalia.

    They're all assholes?

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    406

    405: True clowns are almost perfectly spherical, composed mainly of rubber and neoprene, and are inflated to a taut 220 pounds per square inch before professional use.

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    407


    True clowns
    of God aren't known by their big red noses or floppy shoes -- they're known by their hearts.

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    408

    The setting: The large, slate-floored kitchen of one of the stately homes of England.
    SomeCallMeTim is standing at the counter, dressed in the habit of a butler, sans coat, idly polishing some silver.
    A knock at the door, he turns, and in shuffles minneapolitan, dressed in the rough clothes of an assistant gardener.
    minneapolitan (eyes downcast, tugging his forelock and scraping his feet embarrassedly:
    "You wonted to see me, sar?"
    SomeCallMeTim (imperiously): "Ah yes, minneapolitan. I have had some rather disturbing reports about your fancy for engaging in fits of poesy which is neither modest nor deferential."
    minneapolitan (increasingly uncomfortable): "Oh no sar, I nivir, which is to say, sar, I should nivir 'ave thought sar, to hingage in any fits whatsohever, sar."
    SomeCallMeTim: "Be that as it may, I am very much afraid that I must tell you that your services shall no longer be required."
    minneapolitan: "Oh, but 'ere, wot's to become of me fambly then? Me poor Mathilda, wot's just given birth to our eighth choild, all the little nippers wot depends on me for their daily crust."
    SomeCallMeTim: "That is none of my concern. Please vacate the lower cottage by Tuesday next."
    Matt Weiner enters, dressed in hacking jacket, high riding boots and carrying a crop: "I say, SomeCallMeTim, Cook has just informed me that you are about to sack minneapolitan, what is the meaning of this?"
    SomeCallMeTim: "Yes sir, you see sir, minneapolitan has been belaboring his awful lyrical attempts and has caused a great uproar among the staff."
    Matt Weiner (becoming agitated): "Now see here SomeCallMeTim, I think that you have exceeded your authority!"
    LizardBreath gracefully swans into the room: "Oh, have I missed all the fun, Matt Weiner you naughty boy, I thought we had agreed that I should do the upbraiding!"
    SomeCallMeTim: "Madam, sir, I must protest. If we are to run an efficient stately home of England then there must be both discipline and reward in appropriate measure! Now, in the case of the dog and its proclivities..."
    Matt Weiner, LizardBreath and SomeCallMeTim continue arguing, minneapolitan shuffles backwards towards the door and says meekly: "Ah, beggin' yer pardons mum, sars, Oi'll just be hexcusin' meself."

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    409

    406. And after each professional use they are easily cleaned and stored under the bed.

    I do appreciate that they are easily cleaned.

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    410

    What's a nice pussy like you doing in a thread like this?

    I finally noticed that the text has been changed. More steps; less confusing.

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    411

    I'm the butler? I'm the butler?!

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    412

    Hey! I had no shame before that copier Apo. (-->319)

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    413

    I think of you as more of a footman, Tim. I don't know why you're wearing a habit, though -- eccentricity is one thing, but dressing up like a nun takes it too far.

    (And minnesotan is winning bestest delurk ever.)

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    414

    coulrophobia

    panic attacking
    hard and fast (breathing)
    heart skipping
    sweating like Bush trying to read
    no no no hurling

    Fuck you, clown.

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    415

    What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

    The clowns are to arrive today.

    Why such inaction in the Senate?
    Why do the Senators sit and pass no laws?

    Because the clowns are to arrive today.
    What laws can the Senators pass any more?
    When the clowns come they will make the laws.

    Why did our emperor wake up so early,
    and sits at the greatest gate of the city,
    on the throne, solemn, wearing the crown?

    Because the clowns are to arrive today.
    And the emperor waits to receive
    their chief. Indeed he has prepared
    to give him a reaming. Therein he inscribed
    many titles and names of honor.

    Why have our two consuls and the praetors come out
    today in their red, embroidered togas;
    why do they wear amethyst-studded bracelets,
    and rings with brilliant, glittering emeralds;
    why are they carrying costly canes today,
    wonderfully carved with silver and gold?

    Because the clowns are to arrive today,
    and such things dazzle the clowns.

    Why don't the worthy orators come as always
    to make their speeches, to have their say?

    Because the clowns are to arrive today;
    and they get bored with eloquence and orations.

    Why all of a sudden this unrest
    and confusion. (How solemn the faces have become).
    Why are the streets and squares clearing quickly,
    and all return to their homes, so deep in thought?

    Because night is here but the clowns have not come.
    And some people arrived from the borders,
    and said that there are no longer any clowns.

    And now what shall become of us without any clowns?
    Fucking those clowns was some kind of solution.

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    416

    I don't care how God-damn smart
    these guys are: I'm bored.

    It's been raining like hell all day long
    and there's nothing to do.

    Fuck those clowns.

    (Written January 24, 1967, while poet-in-residence at the California Institute of Technology.)

    I like to think Richard Brautigan would have played along.

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    417

    You're right! Brautigan is perfect:

    Baudelaire was sitting
    in a doorway with a wino
    on San Fransisco's skid row.
    The wino was a million
    years old and could remember
    dinosaurs.
    Baudelaire and the wino
    were drinking Petri Muscatel.
    "One must always be drunk,"
    said Baudelaire.
    "I live in the American Hotel,"
    said the wino. "And I can
    remember dinosaurs."
    "Fuck you, clown,"
    said Baudelaire.

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    418

    And:

    I remember mistaking an old woman for a trout stream in Vermont, and I had to beg her pardon.
    "Excuse me," I said. "I thought you were a trout stream."
    "Fuck you, clown," she said.

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    419

    So beautiful! Thank you, thank you.
    ________________
    A narrow fellow in the grass
    Occasionally rides;
    You may have met him,--did you not,
    His notice sudden is.

    The grass divides as with a comb,
    A spotted shaft is seen;
    And then it closes at your feet
    And opens further on.

    He likes a boggy acre,
    A floor too cool for corn.
    Yet when a child, and barefoot,
    I more than once, at morn,

    Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
    Unbraiding in the sun,--
    When, stooping to secure it,
    It wrinkled, and was gone.

    Several of nature's people
    I know, and they know me;
    I feel for them a transport
    Of cordiality;

    But never met this fellow,
    Attended or alone,
    Without a tighter breathing,
    And "Fuck you, clown."

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    420

    star light, star bright
    first star I see tonight
    I wish I may
    I wish I might
    have the wish I wish tonight
    fuck you clown

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    421

    C'est l'Ennui!-- les yeux sur des sites enfoulées.
    Il rêve d'échafauds en parlant des diktats.
    Tu le connais, toi clown! -- ce monstre délicat,
    -- Hypocrite lecteur, -- mon semblable, -- enculé!

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    422

    A man said to the universe:
    "Sir, I exist!"
    "However," replied the universe--
    "Fuck you, clown."

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    423

    "Clowns are clumsy, stupid and dumb,
    Big fat feet and a mind of their own."

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    424

    Many thanks,
    Mr. Sandburg
    , practiced Homer, scattering the prize bodies
    of the Chikaming herd, his eyes lost in soft grass.
    Suddenly, like a grenade, he heard, "Hey! Get away!"
    He turned to see Carl Sandburg with a stick. "Your work,
    sir--" he began, but the flushed poet charged him. "I said
    FUCK YOU, clown!"

    Homer slipped backwards in shit, said
    shit and scrambled away, shouting over his shoulder, "Thanks
    for 'Grass,' sir! Great poem!" It was difficult work
    escaping that goat-faced old shepherd, their bodies
    a bad vaudeville gag, but my black-sheep uncle pulled away
    at last from that shocking head vanishing into the grass.

    Homer said he admired Sandburg for that chase, their bodies'
    rhyme a kind of thanks, a grace that wouldn't fade away
    like dated work or words raised over weed-choked grass.

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    425

    furuike ya
    kawazu tobikomu
    mizu Fuck you, Clown

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    426

    My favorite Brautigan:

    Karma Repair Kit: Items 1-4
    1. Get enough food to eat, and eat it.
    2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet, and sleep there.
    3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise until you arrive at the silence of yourself, and listen to it.
    4. Fuck you, clown.

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    427

    Send in the clowns.

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    428

    Never to be lonely like that—
    The Early American figure on the beach
    in black coat and knee-breeches
    scanning the didactic storm in privacy,

    never to hear the prairie woves
    in their lunar hilarity
    circling one's little all, one's claim
    to be Law and Prophets

    for all that lawlessness,
    never to whet the appetite
    weeks early, for a face, a hand
    longed-for and dreaded—

    How people used to meet!
    starved, intense, the old
    Christmas gifts saved up till spring,
    and the old plain words,

    and each with his God-given secret,
    spelled out through months of snow and silence,
    burning under the bleached scalp; behind dry lips
    a "Fuck you, clown!"

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    429

    418 provoked a bit of hilarity from this Clown (who is beaming with pride at the thought of nearly 500 comments now, dedicated to himself!)

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    430

    Now is the winter of our discontent
    Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
    And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
    In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
    Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
    Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
    Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
    Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
    Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
    And now, instead of mounting barded steeds
    To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
    He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
    To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
    But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
    Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
    I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
    To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
    I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
    Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
    Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
    Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
    And that so lamely and unfashionable
    That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
    Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
    Have no delight to pass away the time,
    Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
    And descant on mine own deformity:
    And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
    To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
    I am determined to prove a villain
    And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
    Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
    By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
    To set my brother Clarence and the king
    In deadly hate the one against the other:
    And if King Edward be as true and just
    As I am subtle, false and treacherous,
    This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,
    About a prophecy, which says that 'G'
    Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.
    Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: and fuck you, clown.

    [I thought of changing 'G' to 'C' but left it as is]

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    431

    Apologies if already used...

    There's nothing funny about rape
    Unless you're raping a clown
    Fuck you, clown.

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    432

    How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
    I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
    My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
    For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
    I love thee to the level of every day's
    Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
    I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
    I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
    I love with a passion put to use
    In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
    I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
    With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
    Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
    I shall but love thee, so fuck you, clown.

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    433

    F ever two were one, then surely we.
    If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee.
    If ever wife was happy in a man,
    Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
    I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
    Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
    My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
    Nor ought but love from thee give recompetence.
    Thy love is such I can no way repay.
    The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
    Then while we live, in love let's so persever
    That when we live no more, so fuck you, clown.

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    434

    My friend over there, he wants to buy a wallaby.
    Fuck you, clown.

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    435

    Straight outta Compton, crazy motherfucker named Ice Cube
    From the gang called Niggaz With Attitudes
    When I'm called off, I got a sawed off
    Squeeze the trigger, and bodies are hauled off
    You too, boy, if ya fuck with me
    The police are gonna hafta come and get me
    Off yo ass, that's how I'm goin out
    For the punk motherfuckers that's showin out
    Niggaz start to mumble, they wanna rumble
    Mix em and cook em in a pot like gumbo
    Goin off on a motherfucker like that
    with a gat that's pointed at yo ass
    So give it up smooth
    Ain't no tellin when I'm down for a jack move
    Here's a murder rap to keep yo dancin
    with a crime record like Charles Manson
    AK-47 is the tool
    Don't make me act the motherfuckin fool
    Me you can go toe to toe, no maybe
    I'm knockin niggaz out tha box, daily
    yo weekly, monthly and yearly
    until them dumb motherfuckers see clearly
    that I'm down with the capital C-P-T
    Boy you can't fuck with me
    So when I'm in your neighborhood, you better duck
    Coz Ice Cube is crazy as fuck
    As I leave, believe I'm stompin
    but fuck you, clown, I'm comin straight outta Compton

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    436

    My liege, I am advised what I say;
    Neither disturbed with the effect of wine,
    Nor heady-rash, provoked with raging ire,
    Albeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad.
    This woman locked me out this day from my dinner;
    That goldsmith there, were he not packed with her,
    Could witness it, for he was with me then,
    Who parted with me to go fetch a chain,
    Promising to bring it to the Porpentine,
    Where Balthazar and I did dine together.
    Our dinner done, and he not coming thither,
    I went to seek him; in the street I met him,
    And in his company that gentleman.
    There did this perjured goldsmith swear me down
    That I this day of him received the chain,
    Which, God He knows, I saw not; for the which
    He did arrest me with an officer.
    I did obey and sent my peasant home
    For certain ducats; he with none returned.
    Then fairly I bespoke the officer
    To go in person with me to my house.
    By the way we met my wife, her sister, and a rabble more
    Of vile confederates. Along with them
    They brought one Pinch, a hungry, lean-faced villain
    A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
    A threadbare juggler and a fortuneteller,
    A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
    A living dead man. This pernicious slave,
    Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer,
    And, gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,
    And with no face, as ‘twere, outfacing me,
    Cries out I was possessed. Then all together
    They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence,
    And in a dark and dankish vault at home
    There left me and my man, both bound together;
    Till, gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder,
    I gained my freedom and immediately
    Ran hither to your Grace, whom I beseech
    To give me ample satisfaction
    For these deep shames and great indignities;
    And furthermore, fuck you, clown.

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    437

    For God's sake let us sit upon the ground
    And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
    How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
    Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
    Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed,
    All murdered -- for within the hollow crown
    That rounds the mortal temples of a king
    Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,
    Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp,
    Allowing him a breath, a little scene
    To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,
    Infusing him with self and vain conceit
    As if this flesh that walls about our life
    Were brass impregnable; and, humored thus,
    Comes at the last, and, with a little pin
    Bores through his castle wall -- and fuck you, clown!

    That works way too well.

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    438

    The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day,
    The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.

    And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
    A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

    A straggling few got up to go in deep despair.
    The rest clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast.
    They thought, "if only Casey could but get a whack at that.
    We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."

    But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake;
    and the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake.

    So upon that stricken multitude, grim melancholy sat;
    for there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.

    But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all.
    And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball.

    And when the dust had lifted,
    and men saw what had occurred,
    there was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

    Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
    it rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;

    it pounded through on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat;
    for Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

    There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place,
    there was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile lit Casey's face.

    And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
    no stranger in the crowd could doubt t'was Casey at the bat.

    Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt.
    Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.

    Then, while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
    defiance flashed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

    And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
    and Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.

    Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped --
    "That ain't my style," said Casey.

    "Strike one!" the umpire said.
    From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
    like the beating of the storm waves on a stern and distant shore.

    "Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand,
    and it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

    With a smile of Christian charity, great Casey's visage shone,
    he stilled the rising tumult, he bade the game go on.

    He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the dun sphere flew,
    but Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two!"

    "Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered "Fraud!"
    But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.

    They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
    and they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

    The sneer has fled from Casey's lip, the teeth are clenched in hate.
    He pounds, with cruel violence, his bat upon the plate.

    And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
    and now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

    Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.
    The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
    And, somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout,

    fuck you, clown!

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    439

    p.s. I used that one because 419 already did the one I think most deserves this treatment!

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    440

    Another one, because I felt it needed to be done:

    I was angry with my friend:
    I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
    I was angry with my foe:
    I told it not, my wrath did grow.

    And I watered it in fears,
    Night and morning with my tears;
    And I sunned it with smiles,
    And with soft deceitful wiles.

    And it grew both day and night,
    Till it bore an apple bright,
    And my foe beheld it shine,
    And he knew that it was mine,

    And into my garden stole,
    When the night had veiled the pole.
    In the morning, glad I see
    My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
    Fuck you, clown.

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    441

    Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces -
    We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,
    Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed,
    Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses.
    Is it that we fuck clowns?

    Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozed
    With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there;
    For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs;
    Shutters and doors all closed: on us the doors are closed -
    We turn back to our clowns.

    Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn;
    Now ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit.
    For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid;
    Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born,
    For love of fucking clowns.

    To-night, His frost will fasten on this mud and us,
    Shrivelling many hands and puckering foreheads crisp.
    The burying-party, picks and shovels in their shaking grasp,
    Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice,
    So fuck you, clown.

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    442

    Can't stop...

    Full fathom five thy father lies,
    Of his bones are coral made;
    Those are pearls that were his eyes.
    Nothing of him that doth fade
    But doth suffer a sea-change
    Into something rich and strange.
    Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell;
    Hark, now I hear them:
    Fuck you, clown.

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    443

    If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
    Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
    And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
    His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
    If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
    Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
    Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
    Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
    My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
    To children ardent for some desperate glory,
    The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
    Futuare fossor.

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    444

    Why stick to half-measures? If you're going to be wrong, then you might as well really fuck the clown...

    The Parable Of The Old Man And The Clown

    So Abram rose, and rubbed his wood, and went,
    And took the lube with him, and a cock.
    And as they sojourned, both of them together,
    Isaac the first-born spake, and said, My Father,
    Behold the preparations, lube and rod,
    But where the clown for this greased offering?
    Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
    And oiled his parapets and trenches there
    And stretched forth the cock to fuck his son.
    When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
    Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
    Neither do anything to him. Behold,
    A clown, caught in a thicket by his nose;
    Offer the Clown of Pride instead of him.

    But the old man would not so, but fucked his son,
    And half the clowns of Europe, just for fun.

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    445

    lord, you people. 444 comments on nobody thought of:

    "If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
    If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
    But make allowance for their doubting too,
    If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
    Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
    And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
    If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
    If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
    If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;
    If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
    Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

    If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
    And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
    If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
    And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

    If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
    If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
    If all men count with you, but none too much,
    If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
    Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
    And--which is more--fuck you, clown!

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    446

    445, meet 192.

    I would like to take this opportunity to propose an alternate ending:

    If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
    Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
    And--which is more--you'll fuck a clown, my son!

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    447

    When I wake up, well I know I'm gonna be
    I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you
    When I go out, well I know I'm gonna be
    I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you

    And I would walk five hundred miles
    And I would walk five hundred more
    Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles
    To say: "Fuck you, clown!"

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    448

    Where am I?
    In the Village.
    What do you want?
    Information.
    Whose side are you on?
    That would be telling.
    We want information. Information. Information!
    You won't get it.
    By hook or by crook, we will.
    Who are you?
    The new Number 2.
    Who is Number 1?
    You are Number 6.
    I am not a number — I am a free man!
    Mwahahahaha! Mwahahahahahaha!
    Fuck you, clown. Fuck you!

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    449

    Allow me to propose a sub-thread: to wit, poems to which the commenter is happy to have been introduced by the contributions of others to this sprawling thread. I just read "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath for the first time, and it knocked me out. Also, "The Parable of the Old Man and the Young" by Wilfred Owens. (And 444 is just masterful.) Anything else? Some contributions of Bitch, Ph. D. and of Jackmormon upthread are looking quite interesting but I have not sought out the sources as yet. What about y'all?

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    450

    449: I had somehow never come across We Real Cool, from Lizardbreath's 130. I gather it's taught in American high schools as a sort of introduction to poetry so I expect most people here are fed up with it, but it's really clever and elegant.

    Oh yeah, and Kill My Landlord from dagger aleph's 292.

    That's not very highbrow, is it? Let's pretend that's because I already knew all the others.

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    451

    I just read "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath for the first time, and it knocked me out.

    No, Clown, MAMA said knock you out.

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    452

    451 -- hmm?

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    453

    452: This.

    Mama said fuck that clown.
    I'm gonna fuck you clown.

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    454

    452: God you're square.

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    455

    Damn. Clpwnd.

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    456

    This thread wouldn't be complete without:

    That furrow in the hill once must have been
    a notch in a sheer cliff.
    The land is all changed around here,
    due to the work of wind and water,
    wearing away at the rock.
    The water must have flown on, fetching up against
    the rock and pooling in it,
    balked in its course to the sea,
    but we know this:
    one day it broke through, violently,
    like the man who loved the circus,
    its noisy rout and polished bleachers, and
    the trick-riders arabesqued on horseback,
    but whose every visit
    found the clown saying, "You,
    you are the horse's back yourself!"
    Until his shame swallowed his love
    and he returned to the circus to feed his hate
    until the one day it could break through, and he could speak,
    to say at last, "Fuck you,
    clown."

    (It's the poem linked in the original post.)

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    457

    In order to atone for the non-poetic nature of 448, I offer this humble prayer:

    As I stumble through this life,
    help me to create more laughter than tears,
    dispense more cheer than gloom,
    spread more cheer than despair.

    Never let me become so indifferent,
    that I will fail to see the wonders in the eyes of a child,
    or the twinkle in the eyes of the aged.

    Never let me forget that my total effort is to cheer people,
    make them happy, and forget momentarily,
    all the unpleasantness in their lives.

    And in my final moment,
    may I hear You whisper:
    “Fuck you, clown.”

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    458

    Lights, please?

    And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them. And they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, "Fuck you, clown."

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    459

    I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
    For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
    For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
    But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
    Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
    So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
    Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
    The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
    The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
    Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
    Of clowns and fucking.

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    460

    I never saw a Purple Clown,
    I never hope to see one;
    But I can tell you, anyhow,
    I'd rather fuck than be one.

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    461

    "Thank you, whatever comes." And then she turned
    And, as the ray of sun on hanging flowers
    Fades when the wind hath lifted them aside,
    Went swiftly from me. Nay, whatever comes
    One hour was sunlit and the most high gods
    May not make boast of any better thing
    Than to have fucked that clown as it passed.

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    462

    So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehn, good night,
    I hate to go and leave this pretty sight.
    So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehn, adieu,
    Fuck you, fuck you, to you and you and you, (CLOWN!).

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    463

    When can their glory fade?
    O the wild charge they made!
    All the world wonder'd.
    Honour the charge they made!
    Honour the Light Brigade,
    And fuck you, clown!

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    464

    A sudden blow: the great horn beeping still
    Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
    By his big shoes, red nose a nuzzling thrill,
    He holds her helpless breast upon his vest.

    How can those terrified vague fingers push
    The red fro'd glory from her loosening thighs?
    How can anybody, laid in that white rush,
    But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

    A shudder in the loins, engenders there
    The dribble glass, the kerchief without end
    Ballooning dachsunds popped.

    Being so caught up,
    So mastered by the brute blood of le cirque,
    Did she put on his funny with his bone
    Before the indifferent nose could let her drop?

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    465

    Re: 443 does futuare = to fuck in latin, or did I screw up?

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    466

    I saw the best clowns of my generation fucked by madness,
    dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix

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    467

    Oh nevermind, multiply clpwned.

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    468

    wd. Look at 203 which rendered it otherwise. I can't say which is right. Where's B-Wo?

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    469

    468 me.

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    470

    Fucking, and the clown I sing, who, forc'd by fate,
    And haughty Barnum’s unrelenting hate,
    Expell'd and exil'd, left the Ringling show.
    Many sailors, down by docks at night, did he blow
    (Or fifty bucks a ride), before he cleared
    The scratch to buy a field, and build a circus there,
    His bruised pride restor’d with drink and time,
    And settled sure succession in his line,
    Whence comes the circus of the modern day,
    The very fashionable Cirque de Soleil.

    (The joke in this one is in the subtext: that I am a federal employee and your taxes paid for this).

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    471

    Should I get married? Should I be Good?
    Astound the clownnext door with my velvet suit and faustus hood?
    Don't take him to movies but to cemeteries
    tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets
    then desire him and kiss him and all the preliminaries
    and him going just so far and I understanding why
    not getting angry screaming Fuck you! Fuck you, clown!
    Instead take him in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone
    and woo him the entire night the constellations in the sky--

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    472

    464 totally clpwns!

    This was inspired by 448:

    They’re just questions, Angela. In answer to your query, they’re written down for me. It’s a test, designed to provoke an emotional response. Shall we continue? Describe in single words, only the good things that come into your mind. About your mother.

    FUCK YOU, CLOWN!

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    473

    God grant me the serenity
    to accept the clowns I cannot fuck;
    courage to fuck the ones I can;
    and wisdom to know the difference.

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    474

    Well, triply fucked (by clowns). I (1) didn't think anyone had done "Dulce et decorum est" yet, (2) just ran clown through a latin transalor, (3) just guessed which conjugation that verb took after reading one part of an article on latin infinitives.

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    475

    474:
    just ran clown through a latin transalor

    Whereas I googled "latin for clown" and picked the first responsive result, like any serious classical scholar would.

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    476

    Oh I sat over a glass of red wine
    And you came out dressed in a paper cup.
    An ant-fly was eating hay-mire in the chair-rafters
    And large white birds flew in and dropped edible animals to the ground.
    If they had been gulls it would have been garbage
    Or fish. We have to be fair to the animal kingdom,
    But if I do not wish to be fair, if I wish to eat lunch
    Undisturbed --? Fuck you, clown! The world continues.

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    477

    Since the majority of me
    Rejects the majority of you,
    Debating ends forthwith, and we
    Divide. And sure of what to do

    We disinfect new blocks of days
    For our majorities to rent
    With unshared friends, and unwalked ways,
    But silence too is eloquent:

    A silence of minorities
    That, unopposed at last, return
    Each night with cancelled promises
    They want renewed. (Fuck you, clown.)

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    478

    When I see a couple of clowns
    And guess he's fucking her and she's
    Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
    I know this is the circus...

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    479

    I must tell you about a nice dream I had after the funeral. I found myself in a shop, where there was a notice saying:

    YOU ARE REQUESTED TO FUCK THE CLOWN.

    I recognized the place as the barbershop I visit every day. On the day of the funeral, I was kept waiting and therefore arrived a little late at the house of mourning. At that time my family was displeased with me, because I had arranged for the funeral to be quiet and simple, which they later agreed was quite justified. There were also somewhat offended by my lateness. The sentence on the sign has a double meaning: one should do one's duty to the clowns (an apology as though I had not done it and were in need of leniency) and the actual duty itself. The dream thus stems from the inclination to fuck clowns that regularly sets in among survivors.

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    480

    Fuck you, clown! yelled the 'Postropher,
    And all we Mineshaft types strove to see it done.
    LB was pushing and elbowing for a spot at the ringside
    Where the harsh glare of spotlights and flashbulbs
    Kept back the timorous -gg-d.
    & some sad sack clown
    Smudgy green eyebrow pencil and his fat red nose
    Nearly falling off,
    Waited up on stage
    For the inevitable.

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    481

    And for all this, nature is never spent;
    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things,
    And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward springs --
    Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! Fuck you, Clown!

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    482

    479 is touched by genius.

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    483

    Strange to know nothing, never to be sure
    Of what is true or right or real,
    But forced to qualify, "Or so I feel,"
    or "Well, it does seem so:
    Fuck you, clown."

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    484

    Who now had set him gently down and left him.
    He stood upon the narrow balcony and listened:
    And all the clowns above him sang, as in his childhood
    "All, all is vanity," but it was not the same;
    For now the words descended like the calm of circus --
    Nathaniel had been shy because his love was selfish --
    Reborn, he cried in exultation and surrender,
    "The Godhead is broken like bread. Fuck you, clown."

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    485

    Hey did anyone notice MAE posted a link to a whole trove of poetry by and about clowns? I did not until just now.

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    486

    One more (and god, thank you for the opportunity). This one's for 'Smasher.

    When Dean Young Fucks a Clown

    The worm thrashes when it enters the tequila.
    The grape cries out in the wine vat crusher.

    But when Dean Young fucks a clown, his voice is strangely calm.
    Yet it seems that clowns are rarely mentioned.

    He says, Great first chapter but no plot.
    He says, Long runway, short flight.
    He says, This one never had a secret.
    He says, You can’t wear stripes with that.

    He squints as if recalling his childhood in France.
    He purses his lips and shakes his head at the glass.

    Eight-four was a naughty year, he says,
    and for a second I worry that the circus has turned him
    into a sushi-eater in a cravat.

    Then he says,
    This one makes clear the difference
    between a thoughtless remark
    and an unwarranted intrusion.

    Then he says, In this one the pacific last light of afternoon
    stains the wings of the seagull pink
    at the very edge of the postcard.

    But where is the Cabernet of trampolines and lion tamers?
    Where is the Burgundy of human cannonballs?
    Where is the Chablis of unicycles and trapeze artists?
    with the aftertaste of cruel sideshow barkers?
    and the undertone of the bearded lady?

    His mouth is purple as if from his own ventricle
    he had drunk.
    He sways like a fishing rod.

    When a beast is hurt it roars in incomprehension.
    When a bird is hurt it huddles in its nest.

    But when a man is hurt,
    he makes himself an expert.
    Then he stands there with a wig in his hand
    staring into nothing
    as if he were fucking a clown.

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    487

    Thanks, M/tch.

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    488

    Pray, my dear, quoth my mother, have
    you not forgot to wind up the clock ? ----
    Good G -- ! cried my father, making an
    exclamation, but taking care to moderate
    his voice at the same time, ---- Did ever
    woman, since the creation of the world, in-
    terrupt a man with such a silly question?
    Pray, what was your father saying ? ----
    Fuck you, clown!

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    489

    The other one, the one called Clown, is the one things happen to. I walk through the tents of the Ringling Brothers and stop for a moment, perhaps mechanically now, to look at the arc of an acrobat's jump and the mane of the lions; I know of Clown from the mail and see his name on the wall of a telephone booth or in a men's restroom. I like big shoes, wigs, 70's pop, the taste of seltzer and the squirt of a novelty flower; he shares these preferences, but in a vain way that turns them into the attributes of an actor. It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship; I live, let myself go on living, so that Clown may contrive his entertainment, and this entertainment justifies me. It is no effort for me to confess that he has achieved some valid skits, but those skits cannot save me, perhaps because what is good belongs to no one, not even to him, but rather to the circus and to tradition. Besides, I am destined to perish, definitively, and only some instant of myself can survive in him. Little by little, I am giving over everything to him, though I am quite aware of his perverse custom of falsifying and magnifying things.

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    490

    489:
    The contact and the sexual practices of Clöwn have disintegrated this world. Enchanted by its rigor, humanity forgets over and again that it is a viagra-induced rigor, not a natural one. Already our bedrooms have been invaded by the (depraved) “primitive fucking” of Clöwn; already the broadcasting of its disgusting pornography (filled with perverted episodes) has wiped out the one which governed in my childhood . . . A scattered dynasty of red-nosed men has changed the face of the world. Their task continues. If our forecasts are not in error, a hundred years from now someone will discover the hundred volumes of the gonzo porn collection of Clöwn.

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    491

    (No goddammit 490 is not meta enough for Borges I am so stupid I have ruined Christmas again )

    The in-jokes and the poetry of Clöwn have disintegrated this world. Enchanted by the catchphrase, humanity forgets over and again that it is a catchphrase of clowns, not of angels. Already poetry has been invaded by (variations on) the "clown-fucking" of Clöwn; already the iterations of its running joke (filled with clown-fucking episodes) has wiped out the poems which governed in my childhood; already clown-fucking occupies in our poetry the place of everything else, clown-fucking of which we know nothing with certainty - though it’s probably pretty hot. Numismatology, pharmacology and archeology have been reformed. I understand that biology and mathematics also await their avatars... A scattered dynasty of posters has changed the face of the world. Their task continues. If our forecasts are not in error, a hundred years from now someone will discover a million posts on the fucking of Clöwn.


    Then English and French and mere Spanish will disappear from the globe. The world will be Clöwn.

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    492

    Here is a musical version of 178. I blame this on Anarch.

    Fuck you, fuck you! O word of fear...

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    493

    Ah, dear father, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
    Fuck you, clown!

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    494

    Past is past, and if one
    remembers what one meant
    to do and never did, is
    not to have thought to do
    enough? Like that gather-
    ing of one of each I
    planned, to gather one
    of each kind of clover,
    daisy, paintbrush that
    grew in that field
    the cabin stood in and
    study them one afternooon
    before they wilted. Past
    is past. Fuck you,
    clown.

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    495

    (I am trying to modify the following stanza which seems perfect for this game, but finds that it defies me. Out of respect for the poet I reproduce it whole:)

    "Oh to be seventeen years old
    Once again," sang the red-haired man, "and not to know that poetry
    Is ruled with the sceptre of the dumb, the deaf, and the creepy!"
    And the shouting persons battered his immortal body with stones
    And threw his primitive comedy into the sea
    From which it sang forth poems irrevocably blue.

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    496

    I am not a painter, I am a poet.
    Why? I think I would rather be
    a painter, but I am not. Well,
    for instance, Mike Goldberg
    is starting a painting. I drop in.
    "Sit down and have a drink" he
    says. I drink; we drink. I look
    up. "You have FUCK YOU CLOWN in it."
    "Yes, it needed something there."
    "Oh." I go and the days go by
    and I drop in again. The painting
    is going on, and I go, and the days
    go by. I drop in. The painting is
    finished. "Where's FUCK YOU CLOWN?"
    All that's left is just
    letters, "It was too much," Mike says.
    But me? One day I am thinking of
    a color: orange. I write a line
    about orange. Pretty soon it is a
    whole page of words, not lines.
    Then another page. There should be
    so much more, not of cocks, of
    words, of how terrible cocks are
    and life. Days go by. It is even in
    prose, I am a real poet. My poem
    is finished and I haven't mentioned
    cock yet. It's twelve poems, I call
    it COCKS. And one day in a gallery
    I see Mike's painting, called FUCK YOU CLOWN.

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    497

    Damn I fucked that one up.

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    498

    In Goya's greatest scenes we seem to see36K gif of Goya's etching,
    the people of the world
    exactly at the moment when
    they first attained the title of
    'suffering humanity'
    They writhe upon the page
    in a veritable rage
    of adversity
    Heaped up
    groaning with babies and bayonets
    under cement skies
    in an abstract landscape of blasted trees
    bent statues bats wings and beaks
    slippery gibbets
    cadavers and carnivorous cocks
    and all the final hollering monsters
    of the
    "imagination of disaster"
    they are so bloody real
    it is as if they really still existed

    And they do

    Only the landscape is changed

    They still are ranged along the roads
    plagued by legionnaires
    false windmills and demented roosters

    They are the same people
    only further from home
    on freeways fifty lanes wide
    on a concrete continent
    spaced with bland billboards
    illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness

    The scene shows fewer tumbrils
    but more maimed citizens
    in painted cars
    and they have strange license plates
    and clowns
    that fuck America

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    499

    And...

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    500

    500!

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    501

    And indeed there will be time
    To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
    Time to turn back and descend the stair,
    With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
    [They will say: "How his hair is growing 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: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
    Do I dare
    Fuck you?
    Clown?

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    502

    Clowns can be talked about, but not the Eternal Clown.
    Names can be named, but not the Eternal Name.
    As the origin of heaven-and-earth, it is nameless:
    As "the Mother" of all things, it is nameable.
    So, as ever hidden, we should look at its inner essence:
    As always manifest, we should look at its outer aspects.
    These two flow from the same source, though differently named;
    And both are called mysteries.
    The Mystery of mysteries is the Door of all essence.
    Fuck you, Clown.

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    503

    491 is amazing genius. 495, Kenneth Koch? Awesome.

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    504

    Seen the arrow on the doorpost
    Saying, "This land is condemned
    All the way from New Orleans
    To Jerusalem."
    I traveled through East Texas
    Where many martyrs fell
    And I know no one can fuck a clown
    Like Blind Willie McTell

    Well, I heard the hoot owl singing
    As they were taking down the tents
    The stars above the barren trees
    Were his only audience
    Them charcoal gypsy maidens
    Can strut their feathers well
    But nobody can fuck a clown
    Like Blind Willie McTell

    See them big plantations burning
    Hear the cracking of the whips
    Smell that sweet magnolia blooming
    (And) see the ghosts of slavery ships
    I can hear them tribes a-moaning
    (I can) hear the undertaker's bell
    (Yeah), nobody can fuck a clown
    Like Blind Willie McTell

    There's a woman by the river
    With some fine young handsome man
    He's dressed up like a squire
    Bootlegged whiskey in his hand
    There's a chain gang on the highway
    I can hear them rebels yell
    And I know no one can fuck a clown
    Like Blind Willie McTell

    Well, God is in heaven
    And we all want what's his
    But power and greed and corruptible seed
    Seem to be all that there is
    I'm gazing out the window
    Of the St. James Hotel
    And I know no one can fuck a clown
    Like Blind Willie McTell

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    505

    503 -- yeah, "Fresh Air". Is it not amazing?

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    506

    This was way too much fun! I played around with this for too long. I loved Matt's take on Sylvia Plath's "Daddy." Great one! Here's a Hardy and a Dickinson:

    THE moving sun-shapes on the spray,
    The sparkles where the brook was flowing,
    Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May,—
    These were the clowns we wished would stay;
    But they were going.

    Seasons of blankness as of snow,
    The silent bleed of a world decaying,
    The moan of multitudes in woe,—
    These were the clowns we wished would go;
    Fuck you, clowns.
    ___

    SAFE in their alabaster chambers,
    Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,
    Sleep the meek clowns of the resurrection,
    Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.

    Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine;
    Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;
    Pipe the sweet clowns in ignorant cadence,—
    Ah, what sagacity perished here!

    Grand go the years in the crescent above them;
    Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,
    Diadems drop and Doges surrender,
    Fuck you clowns!

    ____

    Thanks for the fun!

    Lingual X

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    507

    BTW Matt -- if Kenneth Koch floats your boat, here is my favorite of his, Lunch, from his book Thank You and other poems. Alas no clown-fucking, except under the table.

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    508

    503: Cheers Matt.

    And Lea's wonderful 492 auspiciously begins the inexorable expansion of Clöwn into the musical arts!

    Surely one of you clowns must sculpt. Laocoon And His Clowns, anyone?

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    509

    A "Fuck You, Clown!" comes across the sky. You have heard it before...

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    510

    Stunned to a Haw by the feathered glory of #464. An offering:

    Pete and repeat sat upon a fence.
    One fell off and who was left?
    A fucking clown. More anon. At noon
    I torture my clownish catamite.
    Hist! He speaks...

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    511

    489-491: I spent about a half hour on Saturday trying to do a Borges one, during which time I looked at both of those pieces and couldn't figure out what to do with them.

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    512

    You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive
    Well you said that we made such a pretty pair
    And that you would never leave
    But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me
    I had some dreams, they were clowns in my coffee,
    Clowns in my coffee, and

    Fuck you, clown
    You probably think this song is about you

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    513

    512: I've fucked with clowns from both sides now,
    From top and bottom, yet somehow,
    It's clowns' illusions I recall,
    I really can't stand clowns, at all.

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    514

    511:
    I looked at both of those pieces and couldn't figure out what to do with them.

    Did you consider putting clown-fucking references in them?

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    515

    Deck the halls with Boston, Charlie
    Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo
    Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
    Fuck you clown, an' alley-ga-roo!

    Don't we know archaic barrel,
    Lulla bye, lilly boy, toodle-oo,
    Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
    Fuck you clown, an' hullabaloo!

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    516

    FuckYouClown, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul, Fuck-Yoo-Clown: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Fuck. You. Clown.
    She was a Clown, a plain Clown, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one giant shoe. She was "You Clown!" in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always a fucking clown.

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    517

    514: Don't be perverse!

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    518

    516: Hooray!

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    519

    517:

    No, seriously.

    It hasn't been working very well so far but it has to get funny eventually.

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    520

    516: What 'Postropher said.

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    521

    ESTRAGON: You say we have to come back tomorrow?

    VLADIMIR: Yes.

    ESTRAGON: Then we can bring a good bit of rope.

    VLADIMIR: Yes.

    Silence.

    ESTRAGON: Didi?

    VLADIMIR: Yes.

    ESTRAGON: I can't go on like this.

    VLADIMIR: That's what you think.

    ESTRAGON: If we parted? That might be better for us.

    VLADIMIR: We'll hang ourselves tomorrow. (Pause.) Unless Godot comes.

    ESTRAGON: And if he comes?

    VLADIMIR: We'll be saved.

    Vladimir takes off his hat (Lucky's), peers inside it, feels about inside it, shakes it, knocks on the crown, puts it on again.

    (A voice from off-stage)

    GODOT: Nah. Fuck you, clowns.

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    522

    muskrat love
    fuck you clown

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    523

    James James Morrisson Morrisson Weatherby George Dupree
    Took great care of his mother, though he was only three
    James James said to his mother
    "Mother," he said, said he,
    "Fuck you, clown."

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    524

    I.

    It is impossible to write a cube as a sum of two cubes, a fourth power as a sum of fourth powers, and, in general, any power beyond the second as a sum of two similar powers. For this, I have found a truly wonderful proof, but I am too busy fucking a clown right now to write it down.

    II.

    To suppose that the clown with all its inimitable contrivances for amusing audiences of all ages, for climbing in and out of little cars, and for the juggling of spherical and brightly chromatic balls, could have been formed by its parents fucking, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree. Yet reason tells me, that, if numerous gradations from an adult and professionally-trained clown to one very young and inexperienced, each grade being at least kind of funny, can be shown to exist; if further, clowns do vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in their routines be ever useful to clowns under changing conditions in the circus-business; the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex clown could be formed by natural reproduction, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real.

    III.

    A new scientific truth does not triumph by winning over a bunch of clowns and fucking them, much to my regret, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

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    525

    Felix clpwns this thread. I bow to you, Felix.

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    526

    523. Clownæsthesiologist , see 222.

    Ave atque Felix. Emmett Kelly himself would doff his hat to you sir.

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    527

    And Lea's wonderful 492 auspiciously begins the inexorable expansion of Clöwn into the musical arts!

    Thank you! I did the setting of that text a few years back, and I figured...what the hell. *grins*

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    528

    526: pwned. But! But --

    THE FUCKING OF CLOWNS

    The Fucking of Clowns is a difficult matter,
      It's not just a game to play on holidays;
    You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
      When I tell you, a clown gets fucked THREE DIFFERENT WAYS.
    First of all, there's his mouth, which you irrumate daily,
      A clown-given blow job's a treat, so they say;
    He'll suck Victor and Jonathan, George and Bill Bailey
      Off with his beautiful mouth, every day.
    Or call it fellatio if you think that sounds sweeter,
      (just like a rose called by in other way)
    He'll blow Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter -
      Blow all those Greeks all the time, every day.
    But I tell you, a clown needs a fuck that's particular,
      A fuck that's peculiar, and more dignified,
    Else how can he keep up his cock perpendicular,
      Or spread out his afro, or cherish his pride?
    I know just such a fuck -- I present to you frottage
      Rubbing up 'gainst the backside of your special clown
    Whether down in the subway, at home in your cottage,
      Or just in a crowd when you're out on the town.
    But above and beyond there's still one fuck left over,
      And that is the fuck that you never will guess;
    The fuck that no human research can discover -
      But THE CLOWN HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
    When you notice a clown in profound meditation,
      It's easy to guess -- you don't need much luck --
    His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
      Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his fuck:
        His ineffable effable
        Effanineffable
    Deep and inscrutable singular Fuck.

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    529

    by in other way
    "in some other way"

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    530

    The killer awoke before dawn
    he put his boots on
    He chose a face from the ancient gallery and
    he Walked On Down The Hall
    He went into to the room where his sister lived
    and then he
    paid a visit to his brother
    and then he
    He Walked On Down The Hall
    And he came to a door
    and he looked inside
    Father. Yes son? I want to kill you.
    Mother, I want to Fuck You, Clown!

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    531

    It would be very sad if no one ever put 528 to music, Lea. I'm just sayin'.

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    532

    I'm holding out for Andrew Lloyd Webber.

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    533

    should auld acquaintance be forgot,
    and never brought to mind?
    should auld acquaintance be forgot,
    and fuck you,clown

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    534

    532: That didn't work so well last time, did it?

    No seriously Lea you do it

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    535

    532 & 534 - Just find some Puccini you don't think anybody's heard in a while and use that.

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    536

    In hindsight I'm surprised it took the thread this long to work its way round to making fun of Andrew Lloyd Webber. It seems so natural.

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    537

    Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
    Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
    Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
    And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
    Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
    Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
    Yet many a man is making friends with death
    Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
    It well may be that in a difficult hour,
    Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
    Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
    I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
    Or trade the memory of this night for food.
    It well may be. Fuck you, clown.

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    538

    I love that poem.

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    539

    Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing,
    there is a field. I'll meet you there to fuck clowns.
    When the soul lies down in that grass with clowns,
    the world is too full to talk about.
    Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other'
    doesn't make sense any more. Nothing left but clown-fucking.

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    540

    Damn! I was kind of hoping Felix's 536 would be the last comment on the thread -- it seemed appropriate somehow. OTOH now I get to anticipate more fun clown-fuckery.

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    541

    I want to see Joe Drymala taking on the œuvre of Irving Berlin. "When you're a Clown you're a Clown all the way"? "Fuckin with the clown" (to the tune of "Puttin on the Ritz")?

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    542

    541 - I had one all ready to go for "Nice work if you can get it" ("and if you get it, won't you fuck a clown?") but I couldn't bring myself to do that to Ira Gershwin.

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    543

    Do I contradict myself?
    Well then fuck you, clown.

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    544

    539: I read that poem every day on the subway and the "ideas, language, the phrase each other, doesn't" bit drives me mad every time. I'm sure there are valid poetic reasons for it, but it looks so much like a typo that it's all I can do not to take a red pen to the bloody thing.

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    545

    Or, alternatively, I read "doesn't make sense" as applying only to "the phrase 'each other'", and "Ideas, language" as just being isolated placeholder phrases thrown in to remind Rumi he should add some ideas and language in there later.

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    546

    I mean seriously fuck you, Rumi, you clown.

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    547

    I know, a dark, secluded place.
    A place, where no, one knows my face.
    A guilty grope, a fast embrace.
    It's called The Mineshaft, and I say: ole!
    All, I see, are silohuettes.
    And all, I hear, are castanets.
    And no, one cares, how late it gets.
    Not at The Mineshaft, and I say: ole!

    At Crooked Timber or any place I go.
    I'll see my manager and everyone I know.
    But when the clown is sitting close and making love to me.
    He'll take my heart, He'll take my soul, but not my private key.

    I'll knoc,k three times, and whisper low,
    The clown, and I, were sent by Joe.
    I'll strike, a match, and I will know --
    I'm in The Mineshaft, and I say: OLE!

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    548

    544: I saw it on the subway yesterday, and my first thought was, "Clowns fucking!" But when I'm on the 4-6 trains all I ever see is that Iago dialogue from Othello. You're, of course, right about the subject-verb agreement problem.

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    549

    Wrong to blame it on Rumi tho -- talk to the translator.

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    550

    my first thought was, "Clowns fucking!"

    It's becomingly increasingly likely that I will blurt out a comment about clownfucking in some horribly inappropriate situation. "No," I'll say, "You don't understand, there's this website. . ." This will not help.

    talk to the translator

    I'm assuming that the translator can't possibly have done it by mistake; that he or she must have been trying to be faithful to some quirk in the original, though probably something that works better in Persian than in English.


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    551

    something that works better in Persian than in English.

    Maybe -gg-d can settle this.

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    552

    THE FUCKING OF THE CLOWN

    Fuck the First

    "Just the place for a clown!" the Bellman cried,
    Anointing his crew with lube --
    Supporting each man on the top of the tide
    By a finger entwined in his pubes.

    "Just the place for a clown! -- I have said it twice.
    That alone should encourage the crew.
    Just the place for a clown! I have said it thrice.
    What I tell you three times is true."

    The crew was complete: it included a boots
    A maker of dildos and plugs
    A photographer brought to direct all the shoots
    And a pusher, to keep them in drugs

    An exotic dancer, whose skill was immense
    Might perhaps have got more than his share;
    But a loan shark, engaged at enormous expense
    Had the whole of the cash in his care.

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    553

    It begins again!

    It cannot be stopped!

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    554

    Okay, 552 is just wrong. The original cannot be improved upon, even with fuckable clowns, and any attempt to do so must be regarded as an unconscionable heresy punishable only by complete excommunication from the society of things.

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    555

    I'm so ashamed...

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    556

    554: Don't you dare stand in the way of progress, Jones. This thing will run you down and keep right on going.

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    557

    552 is great!

    I had foster-parents who made me memorize poetry; I chose that poem because I knew they would not get it. I loved the exresssion on their face when I started, "Fit the First."

    How much better it would have been (how much more trouble I'd be in) if it had been Clownæsthesiologist's fantastic version.

    I've been mulling some Robert Service but can't make it work. Eliot was easy. Birth, death, uncertainty, & clown fucking go together so well.

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    558

    My fourth stanza ought to have begun, "The FTM stripper, whose dick was immense,". I'm trying to work out something for the Beaver -- I can't figure out how to communicate that the Beaver is a large torso-less "wide-open beaver" -- it certainly cannot sit making lace on the deck as the original rodent did; but it had "often, the Bellman said, saved them from cock;/ though none of the sailors knew how". Also! the title should be "THE FUCKING OF THE CLOWN: a "snuff" poem in eight fucks".

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    559

    (Are beavers rodents or some other class? And, thanks md 1/20!)

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    560

    (Yes beavers are rodents: however rodent is an order, not a class!)

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    561

    I want to see Joe Drymala taking on the œuvre of Irving Berlin. "When you're a Clown you're a Clown all the way"?

    Um.

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    562

    Oy vey.

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    563

    IJS, especially since I have dipped into the Sondheim œuvre already, on arguably the best lyric about clowns ever written.

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    564

    Oy vey Fuck you, clown!

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    565

    I left the office yesterday to go home for dinner with a friend (the irritating photographer who used to live on our couch). He brought over Chinese food, and wanted to talk about his new girlfriend, and how oddly things were going with her, and how unsure he was that things were going to work out, and also to boast in incredible and unsavory detail about how he had led her from a frigid fear of sex to wild, multi-orgasmic, sexual hedonism in about a week and a half.

    Her employer? Ringling Brothers.

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    566

    Did he say if she wears her makeup and puffy nose during the act?

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    567

    And did you recommend this thread to him for purposes of research?

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    568

    Wait, wait! LB, to make 565 work, you have to go on for far longer, and make a lot more of the details. What Chinese food? Was it General Tso's, beef with broccoli, what?

    Was this new girlfriend Catholic? Does she put butter or jam on her toast? Does that have something to do with her frigidity? (It needn't; in fact it's better if it doesn't.)

    You'll get there. I really think you're onto something.

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    569

    Hey, can't believe I did not think of this (NSFW) until just now.

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    570

    Clownæsthesiologist, I keep f5'ing in the hope of the Fucking of the Clown: Fuck the Second. 552 is much too awesome to go uncompleted.

    If your day job's getting in the way, maybe you should look for a grant, or some kind of clown-fucker-in-residence program?

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    571

    Hey well I keep coming up with fragments for it but they are not in order. For instance just now on the subway, came to mind:

    You may fuck him with dildos, fuck him with care,
    Fuck him with forks and cock --

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    572

    568: But it wasn't a shaggy dog story. It was true! (She's an accountant, not a clown.)

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    573

    He would answer to "Bitch!" or to any loud pitch,
    Such as "Bite me!" or "Blow me down!"
    To "Hey asshole", or "Got a problem?"
    But especially "Fuck you, clown!"

    While, for those who preferred a more forcible word,
    He had different names, and more:
    His intimate friends called him "Douch-baggins"
    And his enemies, "Skank-ass ho".

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    574

    illustration for the former

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    575

    573:
    Hooray!

    There is a Santa Claun!

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    576

    His form is ungainly—his intellect small—”
    (So the Bellman would often allow)
    “But his cock is tremendous And that, after all,
    Is the thing that one needs with a Clown.”

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    577

    You may fuck him with dildos, fuck him with care,
    Fuck him with forks and cock --
    You may penetrate him with a railway-share
    Or a puppet that's made from a sock.

    (“That’s exactly the method,” the Bellman bold
    In a hasty parenthesis cried,
    “That’s exactly the way I have always been told
    That the cfucking of clowns should be tried!”)

    But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
    If your clown be a mime! For then,
    You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
    And never be met with again.

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    578

    “It is this, it is this that oppresses my soul,
    When I think of my uncle’s last words:
    And my heart is like nothing so much as a bowl
    Brimming over with quivering curds!

    “It is this, it is this—” “We have had that before!”
    The Bellman indignantly said.
    And the Baker replied “Let me say it once more.
    It is this, it is this that I dread!

    “I go down on the Clown—every night, in my gown—
    In a dreamy delirious fuck:
    I smear him with oil in that shady turmoil,
    And I give him my dick for a suck:

    “But if ever I fuck with a Mime, that day,
    In a moment (of this I am sure),
    I shall softly and suddenly vanish away—
    And the notion I cannot endure!”

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    579

    Come friendly clowns and visit Slough!
    Us locals there are lonely now,
    We're sick of fucking local cows,
    Come get some, Clowns!

    Come, clowns and blow our local lads,
    In air-conditioned, comfy pads.
    You want a drink? Fresh wig? Grease-paint? Or bags
    Of cash or drugs?

    You'd like it in this lovely town.
    A house for free for free for every clown!
    And once a week we all get down,
    For orgy time!

    Please fuck the man with double chin
    Although he'll cheat, although he'll sin,
    Although he has repulsive skin,
    He still has needs.

    Fuck on his desk of polished oak,
    Accept his hands so used to stroke,
    And listen to his dirty joke,
    And make him yell.

    Above all fuck us lads who 'as,
    Grown tired of every local lass,
    We're mad to fuck some clownish arse,
    We need a change.

    It's not our fault we do not know,
    What clowns would like -- free radio?
    Just, please, come 'ere, put on a show,
    Then give us head.

    Come friendly clowns and visit Slough!
    We're gagging for some clowns to plow.
    Just think! -- Oh God! -- I'm coming now!
    I need a fag.

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    580

    Radical -- what is the source pray tell?

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    581

    580: You talkin' to me?

    Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough.

    It's very famous and much-quoted in England (out of spite, mostly).


    "A house for free for free for every clown!" s/b less fucked up, obviously.


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    582

    You talkin' to me?

    Don't see anybody else 'round here. (Thanks.)

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    583

    Don't see anybody else 'round here.

    I'm sad now.

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    584

    Cheer up chum -- we can keep this think going. Maybe Strasmangelo will be able to overcome his aversion to modifaction of Dodgson and will get lured back into the mix.

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    585

    er, ah, "modification".

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    586

    No point really in expanding into the genre of the shaggy-dog joke (since our punchline has its origin in said genre), but a long pointless story could end with the villager replying to the holy man, "Silly Rabbi, fucks are for clowns!"

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    587

    Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged.
    > Missing me one place search another.
    > I stop some where waiting for you.
    > Fuck you, clown!
    >

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    588

    583. We're watching.

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    589

    588: Pervert.

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    590

    Then I saw Weary Willy lay Bozo
    All at the Clown Or-gy!

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    591

    An old circus:
    Big shoes slapping on sawdust.
    Fucking clowns.

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