‘Four Short Comic Pieces’ by Joseph S. Salemi

Choosing a Thermometer

If tubes hypoglottal
Can cause you to throttle,
And things in your ears
Breed irrational fears,
And under your armpits
Occasion for harm sits,
While probes in your nose
May precipitate flows,
Then you I expect’ll
Most likely want rectal.

From Hesiod

Cronus, while his dad was screwing,
Took a scythe and did some hewing.
Daddy’s balls and pecker tumbled—
The old man’s pride was duly humbled.

His genitals fell in the ocean
Where the whitecaps’ choppy motion
Whipped them to a fine parfait:
The goddess of erotic play.

And that’s how Aphrodite starts—
Foam churned up from private parts.

The New Third Reich

The Belgians, with their beer and clogs—
A perfect blend of Krauts and Frogs.
They pass their laws and flex their muscles
High up on a perch in Brussels.

A Job Interview at the English Department

They’re troubled that you lecture to the class.
You answer: “Students do not know a thing—
When dealing with a freshman who’s an ass
You can’t expect him suddenly to bring
Sharp insight to the study of a text.”
The Chair harrumphs and shuffles up some papers;
The others seem intolerably vexed
As if they had dyspepsia, or vapors.

A harridan from Women’s Studies asks
If you’re committed to transgendered readings.
You smile, and say the class has major tasks
And no time for such trivial proceedings.
They all look pained, but someone keeps his cool
And thanks you for your visit to the school.

—all from In Your Face Poems (2005)

Joseph S. Salemi has published five books of poetry, and his poems, translations and scholarly articles have appeared in over one hundred publications world-wide.  He is the editor of the literary magazine TRINACRIA and writes for Expansive Poetry On-line. He teaches in the Department of Humanities at New York University and in the Department of Classical Languages at Hunter College.