Know Your Place

by Susan J. Bryant (July 2026)

Earth to Earthlings 
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The dinosaurs were shuffled off
My crust with gusto as I grinned,
Yet shamelessly you scheme and scoff—
You claim you’ll tame my waves and wind,
You’ll temper tempests, freshen air.
Your cocky folly makes me curse.
Hush pious pieholes! Spare your care!
Like dodos you will come off worse.
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I’ve dodged the fist of Father Time
Whose hands have crushed hubristic kings.
I’ve seen heroic chickens climb
To heights where windmills mangle wings.
I’ve sniggered in the Reaper’s face.
I shimmer in this universe.
You pipsqueaks need to know your place.
Like dodos you will come off worse.
.
I’ve spied Goliaths rise and fall
With not a soul to mourn their death.
Extinctions—I’ve survived them all.
Your weeny feet and wisps of breath,
Mere motes that float beneath my gaze.
You’re here to mingle then disperse.
So titchy with such lofty ways—
Like dodos you will come off worse.
.
You are my guests. I am your host.
I entertain as I see fit.
Some days I chill. Some nights I roast.
Your pity matters not one whit.
I’ll watch your fortunes fade to dust.
I’ll glare at every grave-bound hearse
Conveying saviours—fools who fussed.
Like dodos you will come off worse. 
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L’Envoi:
Remember you are skin and bone.
My whim makes ash of stone and throne.
Should you progress or hit reverse—
Like dodos you’ll still come off worse.
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Snootsplaining
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For every galoot there’s a dutiful snoot
Acutely aware that their truth’s absolute.
They jabber and jaw as they bore to the root
Of topics that wallop the nincompoop mute.
For every galoot there’s a dutiful snoot
To set cretins straight with the weight of a brute.
.
For every buffoon there’s a scrupulous snob
To hector and hammer and make it their job
To lecture the lowbrow and lift up the slob
To swaggering spheres of the sniffiest knob.
For every buffoon there’s a scrupulous snob
To elevate oafs with their gaseous gob.
.
For every bad egg there’s a diligent prig
To preach till they purge every trace of the pig
That grunts at the core of the twits slow to twig
Their wonders are small, and their blunders are big.
For every bad egg there’s a diligent prig
To pester the pillocks who don’t give a fig.
.
One snarky remark sparks a Freudian quip
From trumpeting snots of unstoppable lip.
With tongues spitting sermons that sting like a whip
They lash all the jackasses not on their trip.
One snarky remark sparks a Freudian quip
From cavernous cakeholes that call for a zip.
.
For each weary ear there’s a bombastic boffin
Whose trap prattles on from the crib to the coffin.

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Table of Contents

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Susan Jarvis Bryant is originally from the U.K. She now lives on the coastal plains of Texas. Susan is the winner of the 2020 Society of Classical Poets International Poetry Competition and has been nominated for the 2022 and 2024 Pushcart Prize. She has published two books: Elephants Unleashed and Fern Feathered Edges.
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