An Urban Corner Bar _new poetry February 2026

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

An Urban Corner Bar

Don Quixote Bingo

Playing on the jukebox 

Fried fish Fridays.

At one of the tables 

A hipster is reading 

Steel City Mafia

"So, his decline 

Doesn't have to be our decline.

The old man is an ego maniac 

And his condition. Don't get 

Sucked in and feel sorry 

For him for his condition.

Would he feel sorry for you?

Does he? No! We eat 

Peanuts and live in squalor 

While he lives like a king."

A woman in a business suit 

Walks in with a bodyguard.

February 6, 2026

MyStrawHat.com 

John Alan Conte' Jr. 

#new #exploremore #music #art #poetry

{That's Why I'm Walking by Stonewall Jackson 1963 performance https://youtu.be/9ZPBlO7YqDgsuggested background music}

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Good wishes,

John

Sent from my iPhone

Canal Girl _ new poetry art January 2026

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹Canal Girl

Her soft shiny curls 

Framed her delicate face 

A canal girl 

With style and grace 

A town sprout up 

Just her daddy’s luck 

He had a handsome tavern 

The Susquehanna Inn 

I had 333 mirrors 🪞 

Headed onto Pittsburgh 

Then up to New Castle 

Before the canal, to get -

It wasn’t, a safe bet - 

Transporting Eastern Seaboard 

Over the Alleghenies, for sure! 

Horses & wagons = broken glass 

And Pittsburgh’s booming with class

So that’s where the canal girl

Decided to give me a whirl 

We’ll be married real soon

An Edgeworth wedding in June 

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

3:41 a.m. January 30, 2026

John Alan Conte’ Jr. MyStrawHat.com 

Midpeesteinegie Elephants of Elephant 🐘 Island #new #poetry #experience #art January 24, 2026

"Does Art Reflect Reality or Reality Effect Art?" And for that to be truthfully answered you have to have clean clear Classic Jesus of the New Testament morality & ethical forgiving love & firm grasp on truth as reality (not agenda driven) but free 

Midpeesteinegie Elephants of Elephant 🐘 Island #new #poetry #experience #art 

January 24, 2026 3:07am 

Midpeesteinegie Elephants of Elephant 🐘 Island 

Fern braced herself firmly 

Plow trucks on South 15th Street

Had sprayed all the vehicles 

Which then became frozen 

Solid, baby, solidly frozen 

Time stood still for those people 

Who yelled up the slopes about 

The Midpeesteinegie Elephants 🐘 feces 

Records weren’t frozen they spun

Music of Midpeesteinegie Elephant Island

Steamy, hot, tropical, sinful, desire 

Did the island train the elephants 🐘 

Or did the elephants 🐘 train the island???

Sean Hannity Presents, presents them in D.C. 

After Moscow & China had them 🐘 chipped 

A circus with intent to destroy the Constitution 

A circus that travelled the states and abroad 

But Fern’s blast slowed down the red pulse 

Like The Affordability Reality Show will do 

Hitherto town talk in every town in 50 states 

Discussed how Moscow & China how they 

Were defeating the USA with a Trojan Horse 

Fox presents Midpeesteinegie Elephant Island

USA citizens now under Presidents Putin & Xi 

Fern froze time for all to see what’s going on 

☝️👋January 24, 2026 3:07am 

MyStrawHat.com Southwestern, Pennsylvania  MyStrawHat.com Southwestern, Pennsylvania 

Good wishes,

John

Sent from my iPhone

Candy TV _ new poetry January 2026

Candy TV

When I was young 

Everything was Candy and TV

Church, school and family 

Music was everywhere 

So was smoke 

It got inside of you 

Drinking 7up & Mountain Dew

Bowling alleys and pool halls 

Ice skating rinks and basketball 

Magazines, airplanes, Holiday Inns 

My dad could walk to his law firm 

Grandma could walk to her paisano

Mom planting bulbs for spring, summer, fall

Lassie, the Little Rascals, The Lone Ranger 

The goodness within people on full display 

Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, 

Leave It to Beaver, Andy Griffith, Grizzly Adams 

It all made you want to be a better person 

MyStrawHat.com January 22, 2026

John Alan Conte' Jr. 

MyStrawHat.com January 22, 2026

John Alan Conte' Jr. 

#poetry #art #tv #music #exploremore 

Good wishes,

John

Sent from my iPhone

Ain’t Life Swell _ new poetry January 2026

Ain't Life Swell 

The tracks have snow on them 

But the wheels still glide 

Hop on a freight and take a ride 

It don't cost nothin' 

But if you fall you might die 

It's warm inside 

Box-car Captain Freddy 

He got himself a fire 

That he'll share with you 

If he like the first few - 

Sentences you speak of a story 

If he doesn't like A to B to D

He may say A to D to B to D

Or just say, "time you get off"

With a fur-ball cough in the key of C

Snow outlines branches of trees 

Frozen strata painted by Da Vinci 

The hillside whispers comes softly 

It's all coming back into view slowly 

While you calculate a jumping off point 

With good Filson boots hitting another joint 

Oh, gee, you see, ain't life so swell 

6:44 a.m. John Alan Conte' Jr. 

MyStrawHat.com #Conway #Pennsylvania 

#explore #art #music #poetry 

🌹🎶🌹🎶🌹🎶🌹🎶🌹🎶🌹🎶🌹

Good wishes,

John

Sent from my iPhone

Into Unknown (Finding Lost) _ new poetry January 2026

Into Unknown (Finding Lost)

The Franklin Expedition
Set off in superstition
Wandering through the snow
Loaded with lead cans down below
Inuits reported encountering zombies
Blue bloods that were freezing
Blinded by the sun
With a compass and a gun
But it wasn't sun but a cross
All gold & 7 feet with a note
Which read, "You Are Lost"
Glenn Miller found a plane
After missing the A-train
Trying to get to Paris for Christmas
Back when our allies could count on us
All aboard the Chattanooga Choo-Choo
Freedom is a good thing what say you
If you get a call to come play
Tell'em you couldn't find the way
And if they say it's the big white house
Show'em the cartoon of sailor Mickey Mouse

Water Pillow on a Bed of Nails _ #new #experimental #poetry #art Dec’2025

Water Pillow on a Bed of Nails (or white flowers)

Water pillow of water pillows 

on a bed of nails (laugh)

is our gift to you / (US) A,

But, when W.H. Chief Deputy is questioned 

the water really really flows as he cries,

"Daddy!!" And the W.H. Chief of Staff

breaks from the Ballroom's pinball machine 

retorting with a snort of Diet Coke, "those 

aren't nails! They're white daisy chains."

The W.H. Press Secretary when pressed, farts,

and covers it up with a cover up undercover

Asking how she could fart from her mouth?!

especially while wearing a plastic crucifix - 

Given to her by the Attorney General & Deputy 

Both agreeing the plastic will protect her mouth 

better than bulletproof BMW SUVs for FBI/CIA

Yet the B.B.C. hasn't given up and calmly says,

"You've purposely flooded your own streets."

Coincidentally the bedsheets are soaking wet.

Google, "how to cover up a water pillow?"

(Now completed reading Bob Dylan's Tarantula)

Don't forget your brown wing tip shoes at the beach! Too bad they got drenched anyway. 

#experimental #poetry #art MyStrawHat.com 

December 25, 2025 J. Conte' Jr. 

This poem has been dedicated to Bob Dylan's Tarantula + his harmonica which Kierkegaard would say resembles steam-engine calliope when servicing the circus. #experimental #poetry #art MyStrawHat.com 

December 25, 2025 J. Conte' Jr. 

Good wishes,

John

Sent from my iPhone

Polka Dot Flirt 🌹#new #experimental #art #poetry Winter Solstice December 21, 2025

Polka Dot Flirt 

It was more of a skort than skirt 

Nevertheless allowed her to flirt 

With her perfectly quaffed hair 

Something sultry longing in her stare 

No 1940's Private Dick could resist 

For the patriots who did enlist 

Defeating Hitler's Nazi Germany 

Please don't take it so personally 

She was lonely and opened the door

Now your best girl is a wholly adored 

A walking Holiday script so captivating 

She could halt any thug from invading 

With an unassuming quick up & down 

In a sexy whisper, "casino president is a clown.

Private Dick guess what I spy with my eye?

Ok, I'll tell. Because of me he's so compromised"

The art of polka dot flirt is in black & white 

A master piece in silver screen chemistry 

"Geiger's body and a drugged Carmen 

Hidden camera minus its film," said Vivian.

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall

The Big Sleep is not a dozer at all 

🌹#experimental #art #poetry 

Winter Solstice December 21, 2025

John Alan Conte' Jr. MyStrawHat.com 

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

Polka Dot Flirt 

🌹#experimental #art #poetry 

Winter Solstice December 21, 2025

John Alan Conte' Jr. MyStrawHat.com 

🎶🎶🎶 🌹🌹🌹 🎶🎶🎶

https://youtu.be/vhnJlpj2Iak

Good wishes,

John

Sent from my iPhone

Day at the Beach #new #experimental #art #poetry Dec2025

Day at the Beach 

With his head in the sand 

Beside the popular hot dog stand 

Bum-up excreting dogs by the hour 

In front of the outdoor public shower 

22 men on grass plus one woman 

Had muscles and grass in common 

Grinding meat, muscle, bone and fat

Nearby the Venice poet painted with a hat

A typical day at the beach. 

Brown winged tipped shoes? Real freak

Staying away from the littlest waves 

He asks his advisors about his mess 

"This is not a test. This is not a test"

Read the airplanes message banner above

While a King Cobra eyes God's peace dove 

#new #experimental #art #poetry 

December 20 - 21st, 2025

John Alan Conte' Jr.  MyStrawHat.com 

Good wishes,

John

Sent from my iPhone