Category Archives: Humor

Check Mate

6 Replies

 

Version 2

Check Mate

Some girls are bent on wedding any Tom or Dick or Harry,
but when it comes to choosing the man one wants to marry,
a lass should be selective­­––very circumspect and wary
lest she overlook what’s prime for his subsidiary.
A lesser man will drop the ball a better man will carry.
Is it best to know the difference? “Yes!” I insist, “Very!”
Choose a man who makes you hum, and once met, do not tarry.
Why settle for a mere canoe when you can take the ferry?

 

Prompts for today are ferry, subsidiary, prime and hum—or drop. (Ragtag’s prompt page and URLs sport two different words.) Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/16/rdp-tuesday-hum-2/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/16/fowc-with-fandango-prime/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/16/your-daily-word-prompt-subsidiary-april-16-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/16/ferry/

Since NaPoWriMo seems to have dropped all my links off all 16 of the poems I’ve done for them in the past sixteen days, I’m also going to include a link to that poem here in hopes a few people will see it: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2019/04/16/bucket-listless-napowrimo-2019-apr-16/

 

Bucket Listless: NaPoWriMo 2019, Apr 16

7 Replies

IMG_3741

Bucket Listless

Please don’t ever make me go back to Cancun.
If I never return there, I’ve visited too soon.
Don’t make me go to church again or listen to more rap.
Don’t make me go to bed at eight or take a daily nap.
I don’t want to do those things I don’t want to do.
Don’t make me look at animals trapped up in a zoo.

Brains are meant for keeping up farther in your head.
To have to eat the things I think with fills my mind with dread.
Don’t make me eat anything only adults eat:
liver, caviar, pate, kidneys or pigs’ feet.
All of those are parts of animals I’ve come to fear,
for none of them are meant to put in human mouths, my dear.

I think that I’ll live longer without jumping from above.
For bungee cords or parachutes I have no sort of love.
Even roller coasters present uncalled-for risk.
For me a walk upon the beach is adequately brisk.
Anything that’s bumpy, jerky, swooping, fast or twirly
makes me want to arrive late and go home really early.

Please don’t make me listen to those who rant and rave.
If I meet them in the street, I’ll merely nod and wave.
Let bores much given to monologues find another ear;
because those who never listen, I have no wish to hear.
Tea-partiers, loud mouths, bigots and folks in the elite
are on my list of strangers I do not need to meet.

I hope no radiation or chemotherapy
is ever necessary to make me cancer-free.
No machines to make me breathe and no dialysis.
As little poking, pushing, testing and analysis
as possible is what I wish for on my “do not” list.
Just let me go gently into that final mist.

I’ve grown to hate the overuse of “bucket list” as label
for what folks want to do before their death if they are able.
So please be more original in thinking what to call
that list of things that you most want to do before you fall.
For the thing that I don’t want as “I am” turns into “been”
Is to ever hear the phrase of “bucket list” again!

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt today is to write a poem using a list to defamiliarize the mundane. This poem fulfills part of that prescription.

New Girl

2 Replies

New Girl

Her turnover in boyfriends is no subject for debate.
They stand outside her classroom door or by her locker wait.
An entire roster of males stands by, perchance to win a date.
There seems to be not one young man loathe to participate.
And though less pretty classmates tend to excoriate,
secretly, each schoolgirl longs to share her fate.

The world is full of femmes fatales: Naomi, Audrey, Kate.
By their very presence they seem to addlepate
every male within their sight, to stir and titillate.
Seemingly unknowingly, they dangle the right bait
that sets the most attractive men into a frenzied state.
It is as though they’re put on earth just to procreate!

There is no power on this earth to which I can equate
the power of these ladies to attract a mate.
If they knew the secret, they perhaps could educate
other women to allure so every man could sate
his passion for a lover at a faster rate,
so the world’s supply of spinsters could more rapidly abate!

 

 

The word prompts today are wait, turnover, participate and world. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/rdp-monday-wait/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/15/fowc-with-fandango-turnover/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/your-daily-word-prompt-participate-april-15-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/world/

El Raton Cat Food Motivational and Dispersal System

14 Replies

Click on photos to increase size. If photos are not sharp at first, please wait a moment to allow for focusing.

If you are following my development of a totally unique new concept in cat food based on the cat’s own preferences, you’ve already seen the rationale HERE and HERE.  A suggestion by Forgottenman in the comments of that post has led to my improvement of his suggestion. Namely, a feeding dish on the back of a windup mouse that will cater to a cat’s natural proclivity to pursue his quarry. This system ties into a cat’s wild nature, turning a feline turned domestic once again into a hunter/huntress.  Watch your cat’s appetite turn from finicky to ravenous as it gives way to the spell of wild game gained in a wild pursuit. (Flavors available in mouse, rat, squirrel, garter snake and cockroach. Further motivational dispersal systems will soon be available compatible with all of the flavors.)

 

Disclaimer: Fancy Feast does not indeed make a “Mouse” flavored cat food. I have altered and used their can design only as a means to illustrate my earlier poem. This is a joke, folks!!!!

Cat and Mouse

18 Replies

Earlier today, I wrote about an inventive new idea I have recently had concerning a new concept in cat food.  If you didn’t read that post, you can do so HERE. Since that time, I have actually developed the concept, designed a label and gone into production. There is still some time to invest in what I’m sure will be a competitive product on the cat food market.  Just the first of a line that will eventually also include squirrel, garter snake, rat, lizard and cockroach flavors.  Here is the inaugural product:

IMG_1519 2

And HERE is the final refinement of the product.

Disclaimer: Fancy Feast does not indeed make a “Mouse” flavored cat food. I have altered and used their can design only as a means to illustrate my earlier poem. This is a joke, folks!!!!

Lazy April

Leave a reply

Then she was so tuckered out that she decided to take a little rest in the hammock.

Lazy April

As the floating clouds of April leave their tracks across the sky,
they keep their rain inside of them. My flower beds are dry.
My characteristic lethargy I fear I’ll have to quell
by getting all the hoses out and turning on the well.
My watering can’s more portable, I could water by hand,
but I am so very lazy, and I fear I’d have to stand
for hours, shedding water everywhere I go.
Watering with a watering can, in short, is way too slow.
I’ll fire up the sprinklers, give the hoses all a jerk
and go back to my hammock and watch them do their work.

 

The prompts were April, track, characteristic and portable. Here are their links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/13/rdp-saturday-april/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/13/fowc-with-fandango-track/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/13/your-daily-word-prompt-characteristic-april-13-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/13/portable/

Excellent Investment Opportunity!!!

13 Replies

Excellent Investment Opportunity!!!

My old cat will not eat her meals of chicken, meat or fishes.
Can after can, they’re offered, but they do not meet her wishes.
And although she’s demanding, calling for food at all hours,
only now and then do I provide food she devours.

I spend a fortune on her food, but still she oft refuses it.
She lowers her nose and sniffs the air, saunters over and peruses it,
gives two licks, then leaves the rest, meowing for some other
as later it is eaten by the dogs or by her brother.

“Fancy Feast” or “Kitty Cuisine”—whatever, she rejects it,
and if perchance she deigns to dine, afterwards she ejects it.
Since somehow at 18 years old, she’s nonetheless abiding,
perhaps they are hyperbole, these things that I’m confiding,

Still, she is particular and more so as she ages.
At 6 a.m. and noon and five and midnight, how she rages.
It makes no difference whether I am sleeping, sitting, standing.
“Now” and “Now” “NEEEEOW!!!!” she yowls, stubbornly demanding.

Lately, I have had a thought (It’s genius and no less)
of how to please her highness re: this culinary mess.
We need to have new flavors of cat food she might like—
rat or lizard, garter snake, hummingbird or shrike.

Why has no one thought of this? It makes such perfect sense.
Cats do not trawl for tuna or sit upon a fence
waiting for turkeys to trot by. They do not fish for trout.
They wait for passing chipmunks or for mice to run about.

I’m starting up a business canning food that she would eat.
She’ll gobble mouse fresh from the can and soon she’ll be replete.
If I can’t  find investors, I’m going it alone.
“Judy’s Pest Control and Disposal”––killing two birds with one stone.

 

Here, if you are interested, is the first stage of development of my innovational new cat food: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2019/04/14/cat-and-mouse/

And here is the final product: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2019/04/14/el-raton-cat-food-motivational-and-dispersal-system/

 

If

11 Replies

IMG_7205

If

 

 

Prompt words today are coast, natural, aghast and venturesome. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/rdp-saturday-coast/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/06/fowc-with-fandango-natural/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/your-daily-word-prompt-aghast-april-6-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/venturesome-2/

The NaPoWriMo post is: Today, write a poem that emphasizes the power of “if,” of the woulds and coulds and shoulds of the world.

Past Due

7 Replies

Past Due

No laundry can remove the lipstick stains from all your collars,
and you can’t buy atonement with all your guilty dollars.
I won’t condone your straying or ease one guilty thought.
My trust in you can’t be restored. Forgiveness can’t be bought.

You’ve plenty of excuses backed up with your regret,
but your tears won’t get you anything but wet.
I’m tired of all your stories, unaffected by your tears.
Fidelity is something you can’t pay for in arrears.

 

Prompt words today are laundry, condone, plenty and collar. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/05/rdp-friday-laundry
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/05/fowc-with-fandango-condone/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/05/your-daily-word-prompt-plenty-april-5-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/05/collar/

Why Me? NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 2

9 Replies

 

Why Me?

Today I have the doldrums. My smile is upside down.
I cannot go to meet my cronies in the town.
My misery is absolute, I’m coughing and I’m sneezing,
and all this blowing of the nose is definitely unpleasing.

My bones could use some stretching, but I fear this will not be,
and Sandy, Harriet and Glen today I will not see.
I’ll try to talk to Gloria on the telephone
explaining why it’s best today that I am alone.

Why in fifteen minutes, as they shoot the  breeze.
will I be forced to lie abed, to blow my nose and sneeze?
Almond croissants and coffee and congeniality
are theirs while I am sentenced to echinacea tea!

The world just isn’t fair, my friend. I’m such a sorrowful wretch.
The only pleasure left in life to lie here and to kvetch!
It is life’s  idiosyncrasy that nine times out of ten
when I most want to paint the town, instead I must stay in.

What master of the universe sees that such a function
turns out to be a flop as a method of conjunction
with busy friends  that for two months I haven’t seen together
and in the one time we can meet, keeps me on such short tether?

 

The prompt words today are stretch, idiosyncrasy, absolute and upside. In addition, the NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to write a poem that ends in a question. Here are links to all:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/02/rdp-tuesday-stretch/
FOWC with Fandango — Idiosyncrasy
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/02/your-daily-word-prompt-absolute-april-2-
2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/02/upside/
NaPoWriMo