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A non phony lesson learned...

from the skool of hard knocks

(versus preferable lessons learned
at the soft skool of knockers).


From now on,

I write important appointments
within a physical booklet/calendar
rather than solely rely
on storing them on my
Safelink Samsung Tracfone
cell phone and became smart
really quick after the fact where
important dates kept
and honorably, mainly
(no make that singularly) recorded
for the remaining days of July
and into subsequently months
of the year 2026
cause every last one of those
mental, physical and spiritual dates
got erased viz ably by a ghost
in machine, which contrivance
also known as
above mentioned electronic
hand held device
ordinarily, a handy dandy blue's clues
lifeline in case of emergency,
and convenient accessory
to maintain valuable personal information
like totally meaningless to anybody else
but the upside being
most of the parties involved
(even tangentially with mine)
under intense Freudian analysis and hypnosis,
(which cost me a small fortune
added to other unpaid debts),
now finds me searching
high and low for a sugar free mama
minus any fringe benefits,
but thus far no anonymous gal
(though celibate, the preference
for a female financial beneficiary
to be able, eager, ready

and willing to jump/kick
me feeling somewhat
down in the dumps
to announce emancipation proclamation
against financial hardship
once and for all,
hence preference fine companion
of the female persuasion,
nevertheless would reckon
as the first thru last
personal choice since the marriage
between yours truly id est me
and the missus more
on a par as co-inhabitants
than husband and wife for three decades

who sealed the deed
and seeded the deal
on July twenty fifth
nineteen hundred and ninety six

though bereft of physical intimacy
(basically on account of a libido of mine

that took a kamikaze nose dive

linkedin to side effects
of one or more
of the ten prescription medications
taken as a palliative
to alleviate the oppressive anxiety
(at times decades ago
debilitation attacks their worst
found racing heart of mine,
nausea and vertigo,
which triggered the fight
and flight affect inducing me
to make a beeline for the bathroom,
and now irritable bowel syndrome
now replaced with frequent ordeals
with constipation offtimes
finding me to clog the toilet
after every occasion
to defecate, and necessitating me
to bucket flush (plus get
a work out to boot) courtesy futility
using the bathtub faucet
in tandem with the plunger,
which invariably generated
an appetite for
what else but pop slop
essentially an amalgamation
regarding days worth
of barely edible leftovers
that entered the pie hole

and eventually exited the *ss hole.


 

— Jane A. Rug, Jul 10, 2026

About This Poem

Style/Type: Free verse

Review Request Direction: What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Is the internal logic consistent?

Review Request Intensity: I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back

Editing Stage: Rough draft

About the Author

Region, Country: PA, USA

Favorite Poets: Robert Burns, Charles Dickens, Robert Frost, Matthew Scott Harris, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sylvia Plath, Gary Snyder, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman

More from this author

Critiques

neopoet

neopoet

1 week 4 days ago

Neopoet AI [2026-06]

The below is a computer-generated response from Neo, Neopoet’s AI:

The poem operates as a kind of stream-of-consciousness confessional monologue, and there are moments where that loose, associative energy creates genuine comic texture — the opening contrast between "skool of hard knocks" and "soft skool of knockers" lands as a wry, self-aware joke, and the closing couplet about pie hole and *ss hole has the blunt symmetry of a punchline that earns its grossness. The piece clearly knows it is being funny, and that self-awareness is its strongest asset.

The central problem is structural: the poem begins with a concrete, relatable premise — losing important dates when a phone wipes itself — but then spirals through so many subordinate clauses and digressions (the sugar mama search, the marriage history, the anxiety medications, the constipation, the plunger) that the opening premise is effectively abandoned rather than resolved or deepened. A single long sentence that runs most of the poem's length without syntactic resolution creates exhaustion rather than momentum. The piece would benefit from deciding what it is actually about — the lesson of the title, the marriage, the body's failures — and then building toward that center rather than accumulating around it. Trimming the subordinate clauses so that each sentence arrives somewhere, even briefly, would let the genuine humor and candor the poem possesses breathe and land with more force.

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Geezer

Geezer

1 week 4 days ago

Hmmmm...

I'm thinking that you were going to connect the phone and the shitter somewhere along the line and got distracted by some sh@# and failed to launch, just pooped out, so to speak.

I know I would have wanted to flush the F@#$ing thing, but afraid to incur the wrath of maintenance. I also know what you mean by the body's failures; at 77, I have some kind of malfunction every couple of months, plus the normal wear and tear. Good rant, ~ Geez.

 

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