I need help with poems that have a very cynical tone to them. Any and all poems that anyone can find would be very helpful. The poets don't even matter. I need poems and poets from all over the world. Thank you for your help.
Travis Taylor

Search Google for Dorothy Parker, Samuel Hoffenstein, Paul Dehn, and Ambrose Bierce for some examples. I am sure there are zillions more.

Here is one of my faves from Roger McGough:

ONCE I LIVED IN CAPITALS,
MY LIFE INTENSELY PHALLIC,
but now I'm sadly lowercase,
with the occasional italic.

In the arms of Grace
I look at your face
Your eyes reveal,
all you have revealed

Why do I do this?
Mistake hate and ignorance for bliss
I am a girl no doubt

You have decieved me for sure
But I was stupid enough to think
You were cured

Stupid, pitiful me
You couldn't just leave me be
You had to go and decieve me
Stupid, Pitiful me

The colors dance
Your eyes set me into a trance
Your lips breath
all of me

In the arms of grace
I fall from space
All for you
I fall from grace

-------------------------------------

Love, Kisses, Eternity, Devotion
Is there any greater
WASTE OF HUMAN EMOTION

What happens whne love is over
does it rot away
Like your precious
Four-leaf clover!

Kara, if this is your own creation you should post it on the User Submitted Poetry forum.

In any case, it's posted too late to help Travis I think.

Les

Here's one by A.P. Herbert that some might consider cynical, though it's really just light-hearted fancy:

I am the Royal Commission on Kissing,
Appointed by Gladstone in '74.
Most of my colleagues are buried or missing,
Our records were lost in the last Great War,

But I'm still the Royal Commission,
My duty I have to see through,
Though I know as an old politician
Not a thing will be done if I do.

Oscar Wilde defined a cynic as someone who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. So perhaps this one from Edna St.Vincent Millay should be classified as realism rather than cynicism:

I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And vows were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

I do note cynicism here:

Indifferent, The
by Francis Beaumont

Never more will I protest,
To love a woman but in jest:
For as they cannot be true,
So, to give each man his due,
When the wooing fit is past
Their affection cannot last.

Therefore, if I chance to meet
With a mistress fair and sweet,
She my service shall obtain,
Loving her for love again:
Thus much liberty I crave,
Not to be a constant slave.

But when we have tried each other,
If she better like another,
Let her quickly change for me,
Then to change am I as free.
He or she that loves too long
Sell their freedom for a song.

Les



Post Edited (06-19-04 20:49)