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Black and White Challenge: Signs
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Category Archives: Humor
Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast
“You Are Well Come” the banner read,
fluttering high over head.
From tree to tree it had been hung
with vibrant ribbons, securely strung.
Feasting tables were well laid
with mead and beer and lemonade.
The wedding cake stood tall bedecked,
sugar-spun and flower-flecked.
Roast joint of flesh and wheels of cheese
were laid, the wedding guests to please.
The wedding aisle strewn with flowers,
overhead the wedding bowers.
Organ music, strong and steady,
everything was poised and ready.
Heads were turned to footsteps heard
upon the pathway. Not one word
was uttered as the maiden entered.
Her pace was slow, her steps well-centered.
An arrow shot straight down the aisle,
veiled in silk and gowned in lisle.
The bridegroom marked her progress toward
the priest, the ring, the wedding gourd.
She took his hand, their vows were coined,
they sipped the gourd and thus were joined.
That night beauty would grace the bed
of the suitor she had wed.
The ending that you might foresee,
however, is not what will be.
Our plots in life have dips and bendings.
The same starts have different endings.
She wed the prince who slewed the beast
that now comprised the wedding feast!
The above poem was written to fulfill these three prompts:
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/07/19/fowc-with-fandango-steady/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/07/19/vibrant-july-19-2018/
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/07/19/rdp-49-welcome/
Sales Resistance
Sales Resistance
Be careful of, suspicious of, and just a little wary
of people who are talented in speech extemporary
who arrive with suitcases filled with cash-and-carry
items, be they vacuum cleaners or a dictionary.
Their conversation humorous, their prattle light and airy,
their smiles may be luminous, and they may be so very
congenial and friendly, their demeanor downright merry,
and yet, my friend, I recommend that you take care to parry
their sales attacks. Before you buy, please take the time to tarry
and muster up your sales resistance so you purchase nary
a single item from this flam-flam Tom or Dick or Harry.
Just shoo him from your doorstep and off to Tucumcari!
The Ragtag prompt was extempore
This is an Hilarious Spoof of our Esteemed POTUS
Thanks, Forgottenman, for bringing it to my attention. There may be a brief ad at the beginning you can cancel after a few seconds.
In the Open
In the Open
The day is balmy
with segmented clouds.
The African tulip tree
spreads its boughs wide
over the seated ones
as well as the one who stands in front of us,
leading us to ground our feet,
relax our arms with hands palms up
and to go inside ourselves
to watch our breath
and be in the now,
in the state that she calls openness.
To be in the future is not openness, she says,
and to be in the past is not openness.
Only the now is really living.
And it occurs to me
that when I think I want a cup of coffee
and leave my studio to go in search of it,
then, in the kitchen,
can’t remember what I’m there for,
(and the reason why so many
friends my age are doing the same)
is because we are in this state of openness
more frequently
as we get older.
Wanting a cup of coffee is in the future,
and remembering we wanted a cup of coffee
a few minutes ago
is having to remember the past.
Standing here in the kitchen
listening to the baby birds’
loud cheeps
from their nest in the kitchen overhang
is being in the now.
And so it is that all of us, as we age,
are in the deepest stages of meditation
most of the time
and should not worry so much
about Alzheimer’s or dementia,
because we are where Tibetan monks
and ladies leading meditiation
would have us be.
Open. Living the now
with increasingly
less memory
for what was
or was to be.
The Ragtag prompt today is open.
Knees
Knees
Knees, knees, folks have knees
from Katmandu down to Belize.
In Peru, where they ride llamas
they still have knees in their pajamas.
Further north, up where it freezes,
even Polar bears have kneezes.
Knees, knees, folks have knees
to ogle, fondle, pet and squeeze.
(It’s easy when they’re under kilts.)
Some knees on roller skates or stilts
are scabbed and scaly, skinned and sore
but still they know what they are for.
Knees are great to bounce a baby,
to kick a soccer ball, or maybe
to bend in prayer when they’re in church,
or form a perfect sort of perch
for swains who fall on bended knee
to say, ‘I’d like to marry thee.’
Knees, knees, folks have knees.
In sun they burn, in snow they freeze.
Yet knees can cross and knees can knock.
Knees can jog you round the block.
Knees are handy and dependable.
And aren’t we glad that knees are bendable?
The Daily Addictions prompt today is convenient. I ask you. What is more convenient than knees?
In Search of Kerfuffles
Chances are one of these photos depicts a kerfuffle. Click on first photo to enlarge all and view as a slide series.
In Search of Kerfuffles
What, I must ask you, is a kerfuffle?
Is it a soufflé or perhaps a ruffle?
Is it that fuzz that hides under beds
or those stubborn snarls at the back of our heads?
Perhaps they are tasty and come with whipped cream—
a dieter’s nightmare, a sweet tooth’s fine dream.
Do kerfuffles have feathers and beaks on their noses
to fly overhead and poop on our clotheses?
Does one have to walk them or clean up their messes?
I’m no closer to knowing, in spite of these guesses.
Guess I’ll quit my job and pack up a duffle,
set off in the world to find a kerfuffle.
And when I discover it, I’ll bring it home
and finally be able to finish this poem.
The Ragtag prompt today was kerfuffle.
Blind Date
Blind Date
With an air of abandon, she threw off her clothes,
rolled up her hair and night creamed her nose.
She was sure she’d see no one ’til morning at work,
so she removed her bridge with a tug and a jerk.
She peeled off her eyelashes, creamed off her blush.
Did all this slowly with no need to rush.
A natural girl now, her face put away
for her to reclaim the very next day.
She’s snugged up in flannel, propped up in her bed.
By the end of this evening, her book will be read.
The large bowl of chili that rests on the table
right by the bed, she’ll devour when she’s able.
In between page turns, she’ll take a big bite.
She’ll feast and she’ll read ’til she puts out the light.
Until the night’s silence is shattered by ringing.
The strum of guitars and some romantic singing
completes all the ruckus occurring outside
as she pulls up the covers to cower and hide.
For she has remembered, alas and too late
that this was the night that she had a blind date.
She springs to the bathroom to try to redo
all that she’s lately hastened to undo.
“Just a minute!” she calls, and she hears his reply.
Her beauty procedures are done on the fly.
She rips out her curlers, unwinding, unfurling
the locks she’d just put there for overnight curling.
The mascara wand flies. Rouge is rapidly swiped
across the same cheeks she has recently wiped.
She throws on her clothes, grabs her phone and her purse.
No more time to prepare, and no time to rehearse.
She opens the door to survey her date.
He has a nice face and a shiny bald pate.
She consults her watch and she scolds, “You are late!”
Her side of the tale, she’ll neglect to relate.
They’ll have a fine evening and he will take care
not to mention the curler in back of her hair.
Some things best unspoken are things her date knows—
like her one missing eyebrow and cream on her nose.
These slight imperfections he took in his stride
Which is why one year later she wound up his bride.
.
The Daily Addictions prompt is abandon.
Pied Beauty II
Today’s prompt being “spoof,” I decided to resurrect this parody of Gerald Manley Hopkins’ poem “Pied Beauty,” one of my first blogs ever back in 2014:
Pied Beauty II
Thanks be to Sara Lee for appled things—
For pies, for apple fritters and for thin-rolled strudel crust;
For pastries of the fruit of Eve and sauce it swims within;
Fresh-cooked in ovens, how their sweet juice sings;
The sugar clotted and pierced— place it on plate we must;
And all taste, for how can tackling it be such a sin?
All things made of flour and Crisco and of apples sweet;
(How can they by nutritionists be so sorely cussed
With words professing they won’t make us thin?)
With their tart flavor are sure our lips to meet;
And meet again.
—Judy Dykstra-Brown
And now, the original:
Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
–Gerard Manley Hopkins
The Ragtag prompt is spoof.
Slashin’ Fashion
Slashin’ Fashion
We used to think that what we wore in public really mattered.
No one wanted to appear in clothing ripped and tattered.
But now it seems the custom is to vintage-up our fashion
like it has been ripped apart in the throes of passion.
Everywhere we go, bare skin is brashly popping out
as though we can’t afford new jeans and it’s a thing to flout.
When we gain weight we do not have to buy a bigger jean,
we simply use our scissors to augment the space between!
Old men shake their heads in shock and nearly lose their dentures,
and yet these wanton ladies draw their looks as well as censures,
for when they rouge their cheeks, they do not deal with only two.
Now they have to prep four cheeks for the world to view.
I worked on this poem for over an hour and when I tried to add an illustration, I lost it all! Nowhere to be found. Nowhere in drafts. Yes, a bit of cussing. I don’t know about you, but after I’ve written something, I forget it completely, so I had to start out again from scratch. This time it went more quickly, though, and although it is generally the same idea, you know what they say about the one that got away!
This time I’m copying it into my sticky notes before I try to save and illustrate it. This is the first time I haven’t done so in a long time and now I remember why I always did so! Image found on the internet. No credits given.
The Daily Addictions prompt is augment.
The Ragtag prompt is vintage.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 