Humour – Anton Martin Smith Writer

“Nuthouse Candidate” (Comedic Prose)

January 21, 2026January 21, 2026Posted in UncategorizedTagged Books, Comedy, education, fiction, Humour, phd, Prose, slice of life, writingLeave a comment

By Anton Martin Smith Antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

When I walk around town and see the people, I like to play a simple game – I ask myself: “If it was still 1950 – who would be locked up in a nuthouse? From there on is is a fairly simple taxonomy & observation exercise:

Lady at second hand book sale slams books down on the counter like they are sledgehammers –nuthouse candidate.

Lady who when talking to young German tourists can’t get over how far from home they are – nuthouse candidate.

Alcoholic old staff lady who frantically called the cops on a handsome middle aged male customer for making over-the-top jokes with the young female staff – nuthouse candidate.

Homely middle aged lady & checkout chick saying at high ‘customer audible’ volumes to similar staff lady next to her that she “hasn’t had sex in so long that it’s almost grown over” – nuthouse candidate.

You might notice a pattern emerging from this: a lot of middle-aged females. Well this is an understandable but technically false assumption: I would have written down the ‘nuthouse candidates’ who were ‘male’, however as they are all business owners of stores that I regularly frequent (Bookstores, Takeaway Joints, Bars, Pool houses, Cafes), and I am worried they will swiftly ban me on account of if write of them, and they duly recognize themselves in the text.

This is why I will not ever mention a guy like “Joeblo” the vertically challenged snot-nosed barmen who breeds Guinea Pigs and whose nickname is “Richard Gere don’t do that”.

Moreover they also get a free pass from being ‘nuthouse candidates’ as they are economically too important, are often very stupendously witty, & I on too many occasions often agree totally with them.

The moral of the story? Don’t let a flawed research methodology get in the way of having really fun a day out around town.

And always remember to love the crazies because of the ‘it takes one to know one ‘thesis’, and also the other so-true thesis of “there’s nothing worse than being boring”.

And as a postscript – whatever you do, don’t ever listen to the thesis of “If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all”, after all your grandmother was a statistically probably a bitch, and following that thesis would rule out the entire arts & literature game entirely – clearly this is bad-bad-bad.

“An Embarrassing Mishap at the MIDCLAPS” (Prose).

January 12, 2026January 12, 2026Posted in UncategorizedTagged Books, Bukowski, Humour, Mainstream Poetry, poem, Poems, Poetry, Satan, social commentary, writingLeave a comment

By Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

The Envelope was delivered to the smartly dressed compere.

It was a ritzy affair, all paid for via legally stolen cash (of course).

The compare had a blank face even more blank than a blank page,

That was about to be filled with soulless blank copy-cat words,

From one of the many blank-headed nominees.

You know the ones – the ones that put the B in Banal, just as much as they put the ANAL in bANAL.

The compere’s smile was at least as fake as a Politician’s or a Real Estate Agents, or a Dentists for that matter.

He opened the letter slowly & with the accompanied ‘tinny’ drum roll sound playing from a 5 watt speaker.

And then his cold flappy bloodless gums started to flap, with sound coming out.

“And the winner this year …Of the Stock-Standard Middle-Class Poetry Awards, aka the “MIDCLAPS”… is…as it has been every year since inception…It Goes to….

Yes me Zombies! – ‘The Anti-Poetry Non-Truth Factory Poetry Division Collective’ strikes again!

And yes, I’m afraid to say they have one it for the 100th straight year!

Ain’t ‘Rigo-nomics’ grand folks!

They’ve won with the exact same poem, but they’ve slightly rehashed it!

Ooooh! This is so…so…anti-surprising, isn’t it?!

Let me read it to you, as I know you’re all dying to hear it.

Wintery Forest Leaves

As the wintery leaves fell through the dense windswept forest,

The agile birds swooped between the trees,

Like a thread going through a needle,

Their spirited cries echoed though the valley gorges,

And reminded us of our long ago forgotten home,

Which had the strange but stylish hyphenated name of: I-coonta-fookin-recalla”

WAIT A MINUTE DEAR AUDIENCE!

SOMEONE HAS ILLEGALLY INTERFERRED WITH THE WINNERS ENTRY!

THEY’VE FALSELY ADDED AN EXTRA THE LAST LINE OF THIS POEM!

They’ve made it interesting and/or witty and/or unique and/or truthful!

They went BIM BIM BIM

When it was BLAND BLAND BLAND we wanted!

THIS IS ILLEGAL POETRY MY FRIENDS AND WILL NOT BE TOLLERATED!

The MIDCLAPS Awards are on hold indefinitely pending an investigation into this travesty!.

For who knows dear audience & sponsors? –

Perhaps there is a coup going on inside ‘The Anti-Poetry Non-Truth Factory Poetry Division’?

If we don’t nip this in the bud ASAP where will we be hmmm?

Meaningful, Witty Unique & Truthful poetry will abound about the world!

‘The Masses’ will surely un-enslave themselves!

‘The Evil One’ won’t like it!

Yes, Yes Yes, calm down now, take your seats…quell your murmurs…I know we cannot have that folks.

Yes Yes Yes – to the Doctor Sir standing up, I can understand that – Yes ‘we cannot upset Satan’, I agree that ‘it’s against our oath’.

Yes Yes Yes to the madam Lawyer standing up, I agree ‘it’s against our mandate’ – to ‘keep all that’s good in the dark’.

Yes Yes Yes to the Real Estate agent standing up with the for-sale sign on forehead, I agree it’s against clause 6-66 of our constitution ‘Good people cannot be allowed to have good things’.

Don’t worry folks leave it with me and the good folks at the Anti-Poetry-League-Limited aka APOLE

You good folks can rest easy now as you know as much as I do:

SATAN himself – our CEO – would never let anyone take a bite into APOLE and get away with it.

Please enjoy the snack buffet on your way out.

“The Disease that Was Killed with a Slogan” (Prose)

January 8, 2026January 9, 2026Posted in UncategorizedTagged alcohol, bars, Books, fiction, Gen X, Gen Z, Humour, life, mental-health, Poems, Reproduction, social commentary, Wowser, writing1 Comment

I walk back from the place & see my neighbour.

They are Gen Z – about 23.

We’ve Been Neighbours since he was born.

I am a young Gen X – I’m 47.

I haven’t ever really said much to the young fella,

Probably because neighbors these days avoid each other in general.

But he knows I’m his neighbor & vice versa (of course).

Anyway, so I’m walking home.

He sees me from about thirty meters away he’s walking towards me.

And so he doesn’t have to interact with another human being,

He sells a dummy & pretends he’s going to the other direction.

But I’m on to him – he’s bad at executing.

As I walk pass him, not five meters later, he veers back to his original plan and direction.

Proof he’s gone out of his way to avoid me, because it obvious that a passing nod is all too much for him.

If this is the future of our species WE have no hope.

They try to avoid all stress – even the smallest tiniest piece of it.

Thinking more deeply about it, this is surely the behaviour of an endangered animal that is inevitably soon due for extinction.

Let me illustrate the point with a wildlife analogy.

If it was a nature doco about the small endangered ‘Furry Zwapzwap’ of Gonkswania,

The narrator would say:

Sadly the small furry Zwapzwap has become so reclusive over the last century, that it has given up entirely on the stress of communication at all, & is now mute. It is now unable to make it’s former muffled warbling sound. This also means it has tragically lost it’s mating call. It no longer reproduces at all, except by accident when one furry Zwapzwap falls over onto another member of the opposite sex. The Gonwanian Zwapzwap is so now shy it only ventures out when it has to eat, and only eats the minimum so to the reduce stress of being outside to long outside its safe warm underground burrow. Sadly, with all this lack of vitality, Furry Zwapzwap numbers have fallen dramatically to the point of-no-return where even a ‘massive accidental copulation event’ will not stop their total extinction by the year 2075.

The world needs to realise that the under 35 crowd- aka the species future hopes – are the f*cking weak afraid-of-livng furry Zwapzwaps that are breeding themselves and ‘future us out’ of existence.

And p.s. I don’t really care about us aging Gen X’s – we’ve done ‘the tour of duty’ – we’re allowed to start slowly fading away. It’s the Future that matters. No one should start fading away at age sixteen, twenty three, thirty one.

I think we need a new ‘Manhatten Project’ to stop all this ‘scaredie cat’ nonsense.

I’m not saying this is the best strategy option – but perhaps the following scheme easiest way to save future extinction:

Cheap Rent,

Cheap Alcohol,

Lots of late night shitty meat-market bars re-open,

A shitty but guaranteed job for every and any dopey schmuck loser.

I call this theory by a very interesting name:

“Roll back the Wowsering, Roll on the Partying”.

And I reckon you’d win an election with it as a slogan.

If I come up with a less based, more refined way to save us all – I’ll let you know.

But I have a sneaking suspicion there is none.

Hopefully by the time I am 125, I trust someone long ago with more energy than me will have read this prose as a young man or woman, & then championed my idea in the real world of high Politics.

And then perhaps all going well, I will be reading a History book of the Twenty First Century just ended that has a chapter called:

Roll back the Wowsering, Roll on the Partying: The Disease that Was Killed with a Slogan.

But if not we’ll certainly go the way of the Romans, which is sad but probably fitting – given that we are technically the last remnant of The Roman Empire anyway.

If this latter case is the case, I’ll be the last Human on earth age 125, casually reading a dirt-salvaged History book with the chapter:

No One Rolled back the Wowsering, No One Was Partying: And Isn’t It a Pity That We’re All Now Extinct

“If The Results Are Good” (A prose Poem)

December 11, 2025December 12, 2025Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blow-Ups, Books, coffee, Customer Service, fiction, Flat White, Hot Chocolate, Humour, life, Poems, slice of life, social commentary, The Human Condition, writingLeave a comment

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

A Gas-station coffee run it is.

“I’d like a flat white please”, I request.

“Do you wan’t sugar?”, she queries.

“No honey”, I say cheerily.

“If you keep talking like that you’ll get it served in your face!”

She is serious.

Her face is contorted, pained.

She’s in her 50s she has grey dreadlocked hair, a face lined by a share of hard times.

Up until that moment our customer to customer service relations had been friendly enough, perfunctory.

Aiming to quickly diffuse the moment I apologize.

“Oh sorry I didn’t mean anything by that, I didn’t mean to offend…I must be getting old”.

It seemingly half works – after all scolding hot coffee has not hit my face, has it not?

“Would you like a marshmallow?” She says in a as-per-standard-question way.

“No thanks” I say, wondering why she is offering marshmallows for a flat white.

She finishes & hands the coffee over.

I matter-of-factly pay, & leave to my awaiting vehicle which with my ‘ troublesome coffee’ in hand.

As I drive away wearing sunglasses, I glance in to see the counter area.

I’m ascertaining the body language after the unsavory event.

The other staff member that had witnessed it all is looking at me black faced – I take that as a minor win.

The one who served me is obscured.

As I post-mortum the situation – my internal narrative is of two strands:

One is self serving:

“Geez some people can’t control their emotions at all, why no sense of humor – especially in that role”

The other is of a negative bent:

“Oh no you’ve put your foot in it again – why did you say that you fool – ‘no honey’…Geez!“.

As I drive away to my home, I take a sip of the “troublesome coffee”.

I now know why she offered a marshmallow after I ordered.

The sweet taste is sickening.

It is very much a hot chocolate, & not a flat white.

So she has either intentionally or unintentionally punished me on the spot.

I do half a u-turn & then I think better of it & abandon the u-turn.

I’m again driving home.

I’m feeling a little mentally deflated about it all – not that it’s a big deal or anything.

When I enter my driveway I park & disembark & I suddenly perk up a notch.

“Ah…This is good writing material!” I have suddenly realized.

“Thank god I took up writing!” I say to myself with relief.

Writing really has added so many silver linings to the blackest of social thunderclouds that abound.

Of course the worry about this phenomena is that you will create drama in order to write about it.

I wonder – Am I already do this without knowing it?

the problem is of course. as they say – an old chestnut – but is it good or bad?

Well, I cannot categorically answer that – as the answer embodies a conflict of interest.

But as an imperfect, rough & contaminated answer I will say this:

If the results are good…

“Bells, Burgers, & Language Instruction ” (A Prose Poem)

November 27, 2025November 27, 2025Posted in UncategorizedTagged Burgers, fiction, food, Humour, Language, Poems, slice of life, social commentary, travel, writingLeave a comment

by Anton Martin Smith

It’s midday.

“Shall we get pies or burgers” I say to my elderly mother.

The usual ‘bought lunch’ is a ‘chicken & mushroom’ pie for mum,

And a ‘Mince & Cheese variant for me from the ‘servo’ –

along with other incendiary items:

Classic Big Orange Drink that comes housed in a Plastic 2L ‘Milk Container’.

One Coffee for me either in a can or barista – depending on the weather.

“Yes let’s go for burgers” she says with a half energetic thought.

So the good but not really good servo pies are out today.

In my car I go.

I go to the asian eatery – where I have become a novelty.

This is because I like to engage with the staff – who are of various levels of ‘broken english’.

So Burgers now ordered, haggle over a ‘cash price’ done & negotiated.

While waiting I talk to the ‘most broken english’ staff member – the husband of the best talker.

He reminds me of the kind of foreigner that is working too hard to be able to learn the language.

This is not a criticism – just an observation – for we westerners are glib at how hard it is for a ‘far flunger’.

But this time he is keen for an ‘impromptu lesson’.

I see a ruler on the counter – I pick it up & say slowly, demonstratively the word ‘ruler’.

Of course ‘r’s’ & ‘l’s’ are impossible to pronounce, & this word has a double does.

After the as expected bad pronuncial result – I chastise myself for choosing that prop.

I see the counter bell

I say again clearly, teacherly drawn out, demonstrably & repeatedly

“Bell”….”Bell”…”Bell” as I finish it I rung the bell a little.

Before he has the chance to reply comes a disembodied from the back kitchen voice:

“I’M COMING”

We both laugh at this unintended consequence.

Isn’t it great? – the language of physical comedy needs no teacher.

The lesson ends as the now embodied voice comes in & hands over the burgers.

“There’s Extra beetroot for you” what a delight I think as I say my friendly goodbyes.

These little ‘slices of life’ are quite uplifting.

NB: I can report that at home the burgers were well received.

The Pro’-Li’rick ( A Prose-Limerick combo)

November 21, 2025November 21, 2025Posted in UncategorizedTagged Humour, Limericks, ProseLeave a comment

by Anton Martin Smith Antonmartinwrites@gmail.com

Once there was a guy,

Who wrote a few lim’ricks,

He was a fool,

A mean old tool,

And rumour goes ‘e turns tricks.

(P.s. ‘The guy’ is not me – as if I’d write a Limerick…if a serious poet ever did that they’d suddenly drop their pen, pencil or qwerty keyboard – whichever may be the case. By the way, on an entirely different matter – has anyone seen my pen, pencil or qwerty keyboard? I’m sure I had it a second ago…)

“Editorial: Todays Barbarianism To Civility Ratio ” (A Prose Poem)

November 7, 2025November 8, 2025Posted in UncategorizedTagged australian-writer, Barbarism, Books, Civility, history, Humour, nz-writer, Poems, Shakespeare, writingLeave a comment

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com

An national economy should have a ratio of ‘Barbarism to Civility’ –

Yes the “B.T.C” should be quoted in the same revered terms that “G.D.P” is.

A high ‘B.T.C ratio’ should be of great embarrassment to a nation.

In fact – far more so than a ‘Low G.D.P’ is.

For we can all agree that it is better to be poor but gracious,

Than a marauding, unthinking brute.

One day I hope to sit down at a cafe with newspaper in hand,

With the big front page headline booming:

“Barbarianism To Civility Ratio Crashes 27.7% : Spontaneous celebrations fill the streets everywhere!”

& when we open the next day’s paper perhaps we may see this updated report:

“Unfortunately due to the previous days ongoing unbridled celebrations that then turned into a melee –

There was caused a near instantaneous boom in the Barbarism to Civility ratio,

Resulting in a sudden reversal of fortunes,

Thus wiping out yesterdays very happy losses.”

Shakespeare in Titus wrote the line

“Thou art a Roman; be not barbarous”.

But yet he knew & we all know how barbarous the Romans were.

And since we are merely a scattered smoking remnant of the Roman Empire

Do we not today still deceive ourselves in exactly the same way?

We are indeed a well shaken cocktail of Barbarism & Civility.

But let us step towards the silver linings, away from our clouded & foggy minds.

Let’s give a Roman ‘Ave’ to the advent of the ‘Barbarism to Civility Ratio’, printed daily.

Sure I know it wont work, but as a late era Roman I have a love of empty platitudes,

Bold face lies, & abject pigheadedness,

& getting blindly drunk on highly-dubious-philosophic-alcoholic-elixirs.

It is the merely the Late-Era Roman way.

“No! – Mans Best Friend is a Not a Dr…” (A Prose Poem)

October 9, 2025October 23, 2025Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cartels, Doctors, Dr, fantasy, fiction, Humerous Prose, Humour, Laughs, life, Medico Industry, Scams, short story, Slice Of madness, Spoken Word, witty proseLeave a comment

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

Are You Seriously Unwell or Just Mega Jaded?

This is a serious question.

I am sure that in reality there is no difference.

After all surely the symptoms “Mega Jaded” qualify:

Brain Fog to the extreme;

Total lack of energy;

Zero Motivation;

Feelings of Depression;.

You may as well be diagnosed with Chronic-Fatigue-Syndrome, aka CFS

Or Multiple Sclerosis, aka MS.

Or the dreaded ‘God-Knows-What-Syndrome’, aka GKWS.

The problem is if you are just “Mega jaded”,

Which is really just a form of “Burnout” –

To which the sufferer’s complaints no one listens, let alone hands out ‘free passes’ for.

It’s not ‘fair’ but then again only the biggest fools expect life to be ‘fair’.

The Mega Jaded/Burnt out are told to “snap out of it loser”,

Usually & most frequently by the people who look the saddest when they smile.

While if you have CFS or MS you welcomed as a ‘cash cow’ by the ‘Medico Scammers’ –

Who are a variety of the ‘ look saddest when they smile fraternity’ –

Who are always hungry for Taxpayer Lobster Dinners – aka TLD’s.

So, if you are “Mega Jaded” you may as well get your free ‘Dr Lobster Diagnosis’ – aka D.L.D.

Let the ‘Cash Cow’ out of the milking sheds!

& when the ship finally goes down – it won’t matter anyway –

For The Lobsters will survive & the Doctors will die.

I’d call that an all-round societal win-win for all,

Including the Drs themselves,

Most of who are tired of ScamDoctoringTM anyway,

But the Medico-Mafia-System has their balls or ovaries in a formaldehyde-filled-jar.

A Cynical summation? – yes – but at least 51% entirely ‘scamftifically’ true,

& Poetically speaking – at least 100% true – which btw isn’t saying much.

And now it’s time to fly – but let me leave you with a final ‘surmisory’ penultimate witticism.

As the anti-Bob Dylan once never crooned -“Oh the times they are a un-changin’ “

& Ladies & Gents! To put the final boot – that may-in-time-one-day reach ‘adage status’:

No!!! – Mans Best Friend is a Not a Dr – Yet His Nose Is Just As Wet.

This article is owned by Martin Smith Creations ltd (NZ). If you are a person or a small non-profit please read or reproduce freely. Commercial Users or NGO’s: If you want to purchase for reprint of this work for a commercial project to reach a wider audience – then contact me via martinantonsmith@gmail.com to gain written legal permission.