Category Archives: Humor

Nose Job

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Nose Job
The precipitant of my angst is this macro of my nose.
I didn’t vie for this when my friend asked me to pose.
I thought she’d use my profile in a locket or some token,
not knowing that she’d use it for purposes unspoken.
If she had told me earlier what the shot was for,
I would not have been compliant. I’d have shown her to the door.
It’s true my nose is cone-shaped, but no one has ever rated it,
disparaged it or laughed at it or scoffed at or debated it.
So, her dad’s a plastic surgeon and what did he use it for?
Someone else the “after,” and my nose the “before!!!”
Yesterday a letter came–inside two hundred bucks
for my rights to the photo from the clinic mucky-mucks.
I’ve discovered I’m no beauty, and yet I’m charmed in life.
I just got a “nose job” without suffering the knife!!

 

Today’s prompt words are macro, profile, precipitant, cone and unspoken.

Cattitude

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Cattitude

The grey cat cries and cries for food, but in spite of her bitchin’,
it seems there’s naught to satisfy her in her master’s kitchen.
She would not eat the Whiskas tuna that she loved last week.
Fresh hamburger? She only deigned to have a peek.

Pork tenderloin she shuns as well as beef and cream and cheese.
A bit of gravy is another treat that does not please.
Fresh bass I bought and poached for her merely got the nose.
No mouth was closed upon it. It was not a taste she chose.

Chicken in soup with veggies? She chanced to have a taste,
then raised her nose and flicked her tail and made away in haste.
There’s canned tuna on the counter with the other four
new cat foods that I bought today at the cat food store.

I’ll try them out tomorrow, but I do not have much hope.
Chances are her majesty will only sniff and mope.
What is it with these felines that gives them attitude?
I’ve never seen the double of this old girl’s cattitude.

She awakens me at scandalous times, demanding of her feed,
then looks at me askance when I attempt to fill her need.
I fear it’s true she’s skin and bones––my fault it is supposed,
but I assure you that her fast is strictly self-imposed!!!

 

Not fiction! I made a special trip into town today in spite of my wracking cough, donned a face mask and braved Walmart. I bought fresh fish, which I abhor, for the first time in my life, along with all of the foods mentioned above and so far, she chanced one tiny bite. But, just checked and she drank all of the fresh cream I poured out for her. Her highness is satiated for the time being!

I’m linking this to dVerse Poets’ Open Link Night. See other poems HERE.

And to see their website, go HERE.

Party House

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Party House

I can’t take the pressure of frivolous neighbors.
Their loud celebrations conflict with my labors.
Their barbecue odors disturb my frail nose.
They turn up the music when I want to doze.

Convivial people are really a pain.
Of my existence, they’re really the bane.
I wish I could trade them for sedater folks
who had quieter music and told fewer jokes,

for the laughter I hear is pure noise pollution.
I wish I could think of a better solution:
a wall or a device to filter the sound,
but instead I must phone or cry out or pound

on the door that no one inside ever hears.
They just do not care, or so it appears.
I complain to the neighborhood association
that sends them a warning to curb their elation,

but somehow the party just starts up again.
More laughter, more music, more odors, more din.
If only they knew that there’s no need to fight me.
I’d overlook all if they’d only invite me!

Prompt words today are can’t, pressure, frivolous, convivial and  nose.

Wild Oats

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IMG_6925.jpeg

Wild Oats

What he is up to, nobody knows.
He bought a new sports car and wears flashy clothes,
but all his good judgment seems to have died.
He’s capricious and willful and daffy and snide.

The smile on his face seems lacking inside.
If he’s passing by and you ask for a ride,
he’ll go off on a tangent and then leave you stranded
with no idea of where you have landed.

I thought midlife crisis was only in books,
but judging by clothes and behavior and looks,
it’s something he’s caught, albeit quite late,
for if humans were stamped with an expiry date,

I think you would find his nearly expired.
He should be feeble and mostly retired,
but instead, he’s determined to have a new life
minus perspicacity,  minus his wife.

Not one can tell him what’s fun in one’s forties—
the boozing, carousing and other wild sorties—
Can be lethal at eighty, for it’s the truth
that youthful behavior’s best done in one’s youth!

 

Prompt words today are daffy, tangent, complete, caprice and ride. Photo used for illustrative purposes only. 

Cutting Loose

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Cutting Loose

When daylight breaks, bring in the paper
and over breakfast, plan a caper.
Crazy plans are fun to bake up.
Do your nails, put on some makeup.
Call in sick. Forsake your labors
and boggle all your friends and neighbors
by doing something crazy wild.
Reconnect your inner child.

A vital element in fun
is do not stop until you’re done.
Paint your house a vivid hue.
Then why stop there. Why not paint you?
Go for a boat ride, buy a bike.
Buy hiking boots and take a hike.
Wear funny clothes. Get a tattoo.
No end to things that you could do.

Turn your hems up, cut your hair.
(No one can see what’s under there.)
Take Santa Claus out on a date.
Most months he’s bored. Don’t hesitate!
When you are letting loose, please just
only do the things you must.
It’s vital that at least just once
you dare to play the fool or dunce

and take the chance to try to binge
and do what makes the whole world cringe.
It’s fun sometimes to be unique
in what we do or how we speak—
to be that person standing out
with anything that you can flout.
Life’s too short to always do
what the world expects of you!!!

 

Prompt words today were daylight, paper, boggle, vital and bake.

Fitting In

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Image by Pierrick Van Troost on Unsplash. Used by permission

Fitting In

He held his campaign kick-off in a colossal yurt,
clad in plaid Bermuda shorts and a rubber shirt.
His children were unruly, but his wife was slim and perky.
She dispensed campaign buttons that were colorful and quirky.
On them he wore colossal shoes, big pants and a red nose,
but she explained the reason for his eccentric clothes.
Why he wore the clownish clothes and the painted face
was to even out the odds for the senate race.
He wanted to fit in, he said, with others in the Senate
and look like all the other clowns who were sadly in it.
He won out by a landslide—an open and shut case—
proving once again that any fool can win a race.

Prompt words for today are shut, rubber, campaign, quirk and shirt.

Confluent Fidelity


Confluent Fidelity

It’s true that she was lusty, outlandish and gregarious,
with her behavior more or less branded as nefarious.
Her dance in life was often described as arabesque,
and when it came to marriages, her tale was Kafkaesque.
She mixed up her chronology, forgetting which came first.
Divorce or remarriage? She knew not which was worst:
bigamy or loneliness. She simply couldn’t stand
to be without a husband readily at hand.
She often stood with tearful eyes before a judge’s desk—
seemingly an angel, albeit, picaresque.
Somehow when it came to love, right and wrong conflated.
True love made her dizzy. She wound up addlepated.

A comely wrinkling of her brows, a pout, a tear, a sigh
and the judge forgave her. After all, he was a guy.
A simple tiny slap upon her unrepentant wrist
and a heartfelt promise that she would desist
from practicing plural marriage was always the decree—
guaranteeing her misdeeds in perpetuity.
So went her personal history. It seems that she was fated
to spend all her romantic life being  inundated
with husband after husband—one or two at a time—
for courtships left her weak-kneed and weddings were sublime.
Honeymoons her speciality, she found no fault with life
until it came to living it as just one man’s wife!

 

Photo by Alvin Mahmudov on Unsplash, used with permission

 

Prompt words today are gregarious, zest, personal, conflate and desk.

The Butler and the Upstairs Maid

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Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash, used with permission

The Butler and the Upstairs Maid

The butler and the upstairs maid once freed from bed and table
resumed their hugs and kisses whenever they were able.
He wooed her in the garden shed, the pantry and the granary.
Not a place excluded from their extreme chicanery.

When traveling with her mistress, she could not help but fret.
His passions unabated, he was always in a sweat.
Within them both, the hormones were perpetually churning.
How could they do their duties with these fires of romance burning?

At last, master and mistress called the vicar of the parish.
What were they to do about this behavior most garish?
They met this couple making love at every hallway’s turning.
How were they to deal with these excesses of yearning?

The vicar in his wisdom knew the answer right away,
so the problems of their dalliance was able to allay.
Their passions once unquenchable were vanquished all too soon
as soon as they were back again from their honeymoon.

 

Prompt words for today are chicanery, sweat, turning, garish and table.

Doggies of the Realm

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Illustration by Isidro Xilonzóchitl, copyright Judy Dykstra-Brown, 2020

Doggies of the Realm

In seeking to coordinate the canines of the realm,
they formed a grand committee with a countess at the helm
to account for all the dachshunds and classify the terriers,
find greyhounds in their kennels and yorkies in their carriers,
to track down the grand pyrenees up in the highest rocks,
to record all the lapdogs and dalmatians on their walks.

At first strict in her discipline in separating breeds,
in protecting bloodlines and meeting owners’ needs,
when her helpers warned her that they’d run out of spaces,
she had to capitulate in order to find places.
Since they’d run out of kennels, she had to loosen rules.
She locked labs in the closets, tied boxers to the newels.

Put shih tzus in the cupboards and toy poodles in the drawers,
stored retrievers in the boathouse, tied Chihuahuas to the oars.
She felt she’d scored the jackpot when the prisoners all made bail
and so they handed over the former county jail.
She converted all the cellblocks into canine cages
and began to fill up rosters—pages upon pages.

At first she sorted breeds using a system alphabetical,
but later sorting systems became  more hypothetical,
and as her sorting powers eroded over time,
soon she had her doggies classified by rhyme.
For example, in the cages assigned to standard poodles,
she filled the extra corners with the labradoodles.

She recorded canines of every breed and size—
dogs with every length of hair, in every shape and guise,
until at last she had them all down in black and white—
every wagging tail and every growl and bite.
So the snappers and the lickers, the yappers and the yippers
got to go back home to retrieve their masters’ slippers!!

Prompt words today are realm, coordinate, jackpot, capitulate and walk.

New Year Greetings for a Fashionista

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New Year Greetings for a Fashionista

Can your wardrobe accommodate clothes tight and loose?
Yellow and purple and pink and chartreuse?
What say you of maroon and mustard and puce?
Have you anything velvet? Silk or charmeuse?
Do you leap to acquire the newest of fashions?
Are ripped jeans and bare midriffs your current passions?
Are clothes an impulse, a way that you play?
Do they fill up your dreams and round out your day?
If so, then my wish for two thousand twenty
is that you have closets and hangers aplenty.
May you be fully satisfied trying on clothes,
and be shrouded with fashion from shoulders to toes!!!

Prompt words today are puce, accommodate, leap, impulse and play.