Category Archives: Humor

And Now, Live from the White House—

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And Now, Live from the White House!!!

Of all the fake reality shows that fill our brains these days,
not one equals the White House for ridiculous displays.
They’re threatening to serialize his perpetual tweets—
his petty little comments, his braying and his bleats.
For when it comes to ludicrous, I’d say he fills the bill.
No other words more petty have been issued from the hill
in two hundred forty-three years since our country first began.
No other leader so foolish. No other leader so tan.
Perhaps those tanning rays have permanently fried his brain.
That serves as a solution for these comments so inane.
Now when it comes to comedy, it seems the whole world’s watching
to see how long we’ll put up with his blathering and botching.
They find it most amazing that his show has run so long
without somebody finding the nerve to ring the gong!!!

 

(If you don’t know what the Gong Show was, click below to find out:)

 

Prompt words for the day are threat, serialize, perpetual and bill.

How Come the Thumb?

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How Come the Thumb?

Yum.
Your thumb
looks so delicious I can almost taste it.
And I can see that you’re not going to waste it.
But, after you have had a few more sips from it,
do you suppose you could remove your tongue and lips from it
so I can see your face
without the thumb in place?
No?
I thought so.

Well, that’s okay. I’m used to seeing little kids with gums
around their thumbs.
In fact, I’ve never seen a little kid from North or South
Who could keep a thumb as good as yours out of his mouth.
Thumbs need comfort too, I realize.
And a mouth’s the perfect size
for a thumb to hide
inside.
In fact, a tongue
is strung
just right for chewing it,
so I’m not blaming you for doing it.
Bigger kids have learned how not to suck their thumbs like that.
But you’re too young for that.

Anyway, I think your thumb is great. I wouldn’t want to knock it.
I just thought, perhaps, you’d like to store it in your pocket
for awhile. Of course, in there it’s sure to get fuzz stuck on it,
which might affect your further plans to suck on it.
So, you would have to find things for your mouth to do
while there’s no thumb in you.

For instance, maybe you could hum
or chew some gum
and blow a bubble big enough to stretch from here to here
(from ear to ear.)
Or, if you could learn to purse your lips,
we could rehearse your lips
to teach them how to whistle the same song
all day long.
Which is guaranteed to irritate your dad and mum
as least as much as sucking thumb.

I’ve got to tell you, though, you can’t get any songs or gum in
with that thumb in.
So, why not jerk that thumb from in between your lips?
You’ll free your mouth for sips,
for lollipops and jawbreakers.
Why not just let your thumbs be paw shakers?
Develop a grip. Shake hands with friends.
They’ll love your handshakes with no soggy fingers at the ends.

Now I don’t want for you to take this wrong.
You wouldn’t have to take it out for long.
But if you’d pull that thumb out for a while,
Just long enough to show your smile,
I’d love to see your face for once with nothing in it.
Of course that’s hard for little kids––Hey, wait a minute.
Just what are those
two pink things there beneath your nose?
Are those your lips without a thumb in them?
And filled with just the teeth that come in them?

Is that your thumb so dry and pink?
I think
it’s feeling better out in open space
than it has ever felt there in your face.
You must have had that mouth with not a finger in it
for at least a minute.
And you are looking very debonair
without those fingers waving in the air.
In fact, since you have ceased to suckle
on your knuckle,
you’re acting so much bolder,
that you are looking older.

So, now my only question is, how come
you never thought before to give up chewing thumb?

 

For dVerse Poets Pub. Somehow, these two Kafka quotes below wound up leading to the children’s book/verse above:
“I usually solve problems by letting them devour me.” from Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors
“Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.” from The Trial

Birthday Preferences of an Aging Starlet

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Birthday Preferences of an Aging Starlet

Buy me no presents, bake me no cake.
Hang no reminders for my sake.
All these attempts to jubilate me
simply serve to aggravate me.

Let birthday banners remain furled.
Share not the knowledge with the world
that I, alas, am one year older.
Strike it from my bio folder.

This trend of aging gracefully
does not work for dames like me
who strut our stuff upon the stage,
for starlets aren’t allowed to age.

In lieu of throwing me a bash,
why not simply give me cash?
I’ll put the money to good use
obscuring aging’s cruel abuse.

Advancing years require rebuttal,
so I prefer to be more subtle.
I need a simple tuck of face
ere I approach the casting place.

I won’t allow youth to defy me.
while I have means to petrify me.
So spare me cards soulful or funny
I prefer you give me money!!

Prompt words today are subtle, cash, knowledge, jubilate and bake.

 

 

Double Identity

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IMG_3308Double Identity

Sometimes she’s  an angel. At other times a witch.
There is no way to know when her personae’s going to switch.
When an angel, she’s gregarious, obedient and sexy,
but during her more bitchy days, she’s silent, dark and hexy.
No x-ray can determine which one she’s going to be.
There is no test to indicate which one she’s going to see
when she wakes up each morning and stumbles to the mirror
to see which one she’ll be today–the feared one or the dearer.
I’m always the first one to see what side of her will win,
for each day the face she chooses is the one that I’ll be in!

 

Prompt words for today are switch, gregarious, obedient, indicate and x-ray.

Dental Intermissions

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Image from Pinterest.

Dental Intermissions                                  

There’s nothing quite so fundamental
when it comes to matters dental
as the fact that teeth gone missing
mar the esthetics of kissing.

It’s doubtful that a dental gap
would land a lass upon the lap
of any lad whose reminiscing
will be done with s’s hissing.

Potential lovers tend to hate
suitors of the toothless state.
Better they should duplicate
those teeth that happened to vacate

those facial places deep inside
the mouths wherein they should reside.
Teeth should be natives of the jaws
that reside within the maws

of suitors that might deign to woo—
to hug and kiss and bill and coo.
In short, what lass does less than censure
a suitor who forgets his denture?

 

Prompt words today are missing, duplicate, native, fundamental and doubtful.

Old Lovers

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Old Lovers

We meet in the kitchen,
your face slightly blue
in the light from the refrigerator.
Left-over shepherd’s pie in one hand,
a half-gallon of Costco vanilla ice cream in the other,
you seem suspended in a middle land
between repletion and guilt.

Being here for the same purpose,
I offer absolution,
and we talk about the future,
sitting with forks and spoons aloft,
eating from the same bowl and carton.
It is part of our sensuality,
this culinary communication at 2 a.m.

Wishing to go deeper,
we seek out chocolate
in that place
where you have hidden it
for years––on top of the refrigerator.
Knowing all your secrets,
I am the one who retrieves it this time.

This is what might happen
if we were not divided by miles,
you in your country,
me in mine. As it is,
you feast on ribs from Dexter Barbecue,
I eat the ice cream with a single spoon—
these mid-night fantasies
reality enough for old lovers
building new communions.

 

 

 

Prompt words today are talk, middle, sensual, future and kitchen.

The Education of a Prodigy

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photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash. Used with permission.

The Education of a Prodigy

It’s true he was sardonic, which made it rather hard
for him to assimilate in the schoolyard.
In short, he was precocious, advanced beyond his years.
It’s when it came to social skills that he was in arrears.
He couldn’t really bat the ball. He failed at pitch and catching,
and when it came to fielding, he just excelled at scratching.
When other kids made fun of him, he whipped them with his tongue—
a most distressing habit in one who was so young.
His teachers merely shook their heads and gave him up for lost,
for he took instructions poorly, refusing to be bossed.
It wasn’t until college, when he met a certain “Miss”
that his sharpened tongue was rounded by  a simple good night kiss.
Surprising how true love can bring an end to lifelong ills.
Now she gives the instructions and he just pays the bills.

Prompt words on this Friday the 13th are sardonic, assimilate, precocious and scratch. Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash. Used with permission.

 

Late Starter

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Late Starter

He called his dad a troglodyte, his sisters, basket cases,
although he was not brash enough to do so to their faces.
He felt himself the underdog—blamed for everything.
He felt his wings were clipped, although he dreamed of taking wing.
Someday he would spring the trap and he would show them all.
But until that day, he’d simply hang out at the mall,
checking out the chicks and panhandling when he could.
He knew he could do great things and some day he would,
but no one gave him chances. The Mexicans and Arabs
with their Virgin Marias and their half-moons and their scarabs
were taking all his jobs away. He didn’t even try.
Why should a decent white guy bother to apply?

How dare his dad declare that he has nothing on the ball?
He is kept plenty busy holding up this wall.
When the other wall is built, his life will come together.
He’ll get some fancy job and break the family tether.
Get a real cool crash pad and party with his friends.
He’ll make some just as soon as this foreign invasion ends.
Time enough for school once Trump takes out the trash.
Then he’ll ace his classes and rake in the cash.
He’ll show every idiot who claims he is a bum
that he is the genius. He’ll show them who is dumb!
Those guys who hang out at the mall in every sort of weather?
If we could read their thoughts, they just might be birds of a feather.

 

Prompt words for the day are troglodyte, brash, underdog, spring. Mall photo by Neel Tailor, used with permission. Other photos by Judy D-B. 

The Fix

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The Fix

They say it was just happenstance that they ever met—
she a wealthy spinster, he of the lower set.
He liked his women spicy. She was a basket case.
She, aloof and cloistered, considered workmen base.

She had notified the landlord of a problem with her plumbing.
For at least a week, he promised that someone was coming,
so by the time the plumber finally came to fix her pipes,
she was apoplectic—chock full of niggling gripes.

Any other normal man would have been offended
when she hovered and she chattered as he soldered, wrenched and mended,
but he had an even temperament, so he maintained his cool
as she niggled over every move and questioned every tool.

Finally, as she hovered, questioning that and this,
he simply rose and drew her into a passioned kiss
that stifled all her sputterings
and muffled all her mutterings,

until she ceased her protests, surrendered to the fun
and  repaid him all his kisses, returning one for one.
It was a simple wedding with little pomp or strife.
And that is how the lady found someone to fix her life.

 

Prompt words for the day are happenstance, aloof, spicy, notify and basket.

Why Second-hand Adventure is Good Enough for Me

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(Click photos to enlarge and read captions.)

Bit of a climb.
Finally, happy campers.
In the begiinning, explorations and good times.
The morning after!

Why Second-hand Adventure is Good Enough for Me

There was a time in college when we thought we would go camping.
It took  a lot of packing and some walking and some stamping
to rid the site of red ants and to cut away the bushes,
to find a level spot for our bedrolls and our tushes.
It’s good that we were youthful, and accustomed to reversal,
for when it came to camping, this was our first rehearsal.

None of us were nature girls. This was our trial run.
We came for something different, just to have some fun.
We brought a giant bottle of cheap rosé and chips.
Some white bread and bologna. Some mustard and some dips.
Our hopes were grand and hopeful. We were fervid in our dreams.
We lugged all our equipment down faint trails and forded streams.

Lugging a giant cooler, water and some some spray
in case there were mosquitos, slowly we made our way
down to small rude patch of ground that sloped down to the creek.
 My German Shepherd Gretchen went ahead of us to seek
out squirrels and other wildlife that she had a chance to get,
scouting ahead for creatures that might have posed a threat.

The day passed without conflict. We hiked and talked and ate.
We had no trepidation about what would be our fate.
Our night was spent less pleasantly as we slowly slipped
downward hour by hour until finally we dipped
our feet into the water of the creek just down the hill.
Certainly by sunrise, we three had had our fill

of the stones and bugs and soakings that we all had  faced
as all night long my dog barked, ran back and forth and chased
imaginary creatures hidden in the dark
In the end, our camping wasn’t such a lark.
We had a hasty breakfast and as we packed up our gear,
we apologized to others camping far and near

for my dog’s disturbance for the whole long night.
from the first star’s appearance to the first morning light.
And then they told us something we hadn’t known before.
We were camping in bear territory, and they said, “What’s more,
if you had foodstuff with you, your dog did you a favor.
Bears are very partial to young ladies of your flavor!”
And so that first time camping turned out to be our last.
Our setting up went rather slow, but breaking down went fast.
We packed our car and sped right down those twisted mountain roads,
right back to the city. Right back to our abodes.
I gave the dog a juicy bone and flipped on the TV,
sure that second-hand adventure was good enough for me.

 

Prompt words today are fervid, reverse, youthful, giant and camping.

This was a real-life adventure with my good friends Jean and Joan Lenzi who were twins and my college roommates. R.I.P. Jean and Joan. We had many adventures together and this was one of the first ones.