Category Archives: Humor

Sport Retort

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Sport Retort

When faced with talk of games and sport,
I seldom have cause to retort.
For dribbling, sparring, touching  down
raise no emotions but a frown.
The games I play are just of mind
Less physically taxing and more kind.

Using tongues and brains to spar,
I am more likely  under par
than when I hit a pock-marked ball
off of the course to hit a wall,
bounce off and into someone’s car
to be transported to regions far.

I have not thought to scream out, “Fore!”
My terminology’s as poor,
I fear, as my coordination,
I will not, ever, stun the nation
with my prowess with balls or bats,
parallel bars, hurdles or mats.

Likewise, I have no interest in
watching others skate and spin,
touch balls down or thrust a fist.
When it comes to sports, I must insist
when the tube depicts each bout,
I am forgiven for running out!!!

This is a reblog of a piece I wrote three years ago. The Prompt today was parallel.

A Dreaming Vocabulary: NaPoWriMo, Apr 14, 2018

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A Dreaming Vocabulary

When you’re sleeping soundly in your nightie or pajammers
and you happen to be dreaming of teacups, sharks and hammers,
if the hammer pounds the teacup, spilling tea and cream
to soak the wobbly table that is also in your dream,
you might think good fortune has cruelly run out,
but that still does not explain what the shark’s about.

A dentist in a rowboat comes rowing quickly by.
He fixes that circling shark securely with his eye,
grabs him in a deadlock and pulls him o’er the side,
doses him with novocaine, then just drifts with the tide
as he extracts the teeth that he might use to chew
on anything that he encounters: fish or squid or you!

And just as he is finishing this grisly operation,
the shark begins a session of intense regurgitation.
First a full-grown seagull, then a pink silk ballet slipper
with the ballet dancer still attached, alive but not too chipper.
The shark is still recovering so toothless and so numb it
knows not that if it wants a meal, hereafter, it must gum it.

The whole group now returns to shore. The dancer dances off.
The seagull sits in shock and the shark begins to cough.
A mariachi hits the sand, complete with his guitar.
All of them a bit in shock, wondering where they are.
And to you, caught there  in dreamland, what message does this send?
Perhaps, my dear,  that everything comes out right in the end!

 

The Day 14 prompt is: Pick one (or more) of the following words, and write about what it means to dream of these things: Teacup, Hammer, Seagull, Ballet slipper, Shark, Wobbly table, Dentist, Rowboat.

Incandescent Insect Insomnia

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photo from the internet                          

Both the Mills Brothers and Dean Martin recorded the song “Glow Worm” whose lyrics and tune I loved as a little girl. WordPress wouldn’t let me download the song from Youtube, but  please find it yourself and listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaBDPNKgj9A. Then don’t forget to come back for my reply:

Incandescent Insect Insomnia

When nature made the  glow worm glimmer,
would that she’d installed a dimmer;
for when I put out the light,
what I expect is total night.

When it puts itself in action,
I fear it sets up a distraction.
Little glow worm on the shelf,
please keep your glowing to yourself.

The prompt today is glimmer.

A Watched Pot: NaPoWriMo 2018, Friday the 13th.

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A Botched Pot 
Why does a watched pot never boil?
A failure to ignite the coil?
Failure to put the water in?
That’s how such pithy sayings begin.
Their logic, though, I fear is thin
when they say watching is the sin.
He who tries to pass the buck
by quoting this is out of luck.
His gig is up. He’s surely caught.
‘Twas inattention botched the pot.

The NaPoWriMo prompt today:  write a poem in which the words or meaning of a familiar phrase get up-ended.

Rush

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Rush

Get a leg on. Hurry hurry.
Life is just a daily flurry.
Feed the cat and feed the dog.
Take your pills and write your blog.
Company’s coming. Make a curry.
Lately, life is getting blurry
from all there is I have to do:
write and clean and cook and glue.
Things pile up but I’ve no time.
Days had more hours in my prime.
But now I’m always in a rush,
caught within the daily crush.
My “to do” list has me trapped.
I crave a life that is less mapped.
I fear my rushing won’t be over
until I’m pushing up the clover!!!

The prompt today is rush.

On Strike

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On Strike

The word “inchoate” is absurd!
Does anybody use this word?
For the first time, I draw the line—
won’t use it in a poem of mine.
Guiltless in the abuse of it,
I will you all the use of it!

in·cho·ate inˈkōət,ˈinkəˌwāt/adjective: just begun and so not fully formed or developed; rudimentary.

“a still inchoate democracy”

 

The prompt today was inchoate.

NaPoWriMo Apr 6, 2018: Fledgling

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Fledgling

Nobody knew
when she stood Sunday still
and held her breath
and pumped her arms
really hard
with total concentration
that she could fly,
rising straight up
until she reached the place where she could swim the air,

because
even when she did it
in their presence,
they were always looking
in the wrong direction.

Until that night
at the dinner table
when everyone
had someone
to talk to
except her,
and so she rose into the busy air above the table
to hover
over
mashed potatoes
until
dessert.


The NaPoWriMo  prompt was to write a poem that stretches your comfort zone with line breaks. That could be a poem with very long lines, or very short lines. Or a poem that blends the two. You might break to emphasize (or de-emphasize) sounds or rhymes, or to create a moment of hesitation in the middle of a thought.

Cold Weather and the Subtle Art of Wooing

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Cold Weather and the Subtle Art of Wooing

A frozen little nose and frigid little toes
plague my teeny-bopper everywhere she goes,
for she does not cover tender little parts
when the winter comes and when the snowing starts.

Flip-flops on her feet, face naked to the air—
she seems to need to show us everything that’s there.
Little mini-skirts and a tiny cotton blouse
with nary a parka as she journeys house-to-house.

She says the weather’s nothing. She says she isn’t cold,
and she will not listen. She simply won’t be told
by her mother or her father that she should bundle up.
We try to give her mittens, hot cocoa in a cup.

Now once again she’s out of here with a new boyfriend
but without a coat or sweater to protect against the wind.
But then I see her logic. for when she subtly sneezes,
he drapes an arm around her to shield her from the breezes. 

So even though my daughter might seem naive and daft
not taking due precautions against the cold and draft,
there’s a method to her madness. She knows what she is doing.
Instead of dressing for the weather she is dressing for the wooing.

 

The WordPress prompt today is frigid.

Techaffection

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Techaffection

All types of loving have their seasons
wherein we love for different reasons.
When we are young lads and misses,
loving mainly starts with kisses,
whereas loyalty and pleasure
later count in equal measure.
But as we age, love changes, too,
as some things get harder to do.
And as our brains grow more ecliptic,
screens get smaller, apps more cryptic.

So simple tasks–perhaps to clone
old data to a new iPhone
become more difficult to do
until in time you have no clue
and thus it is you call a tech
to get your puzzlement in check
and in an hour or two he solves
your problems and your fears absolves.
You thumb your phone to make a call
and find it’s not so hard at all.

You have your contacts here with you.
Your photos, and your camera, too.
Calendar, iTunes and maps––
all the necessary apps.
Appreciation starts to grow
for that young techie who helped you so––
a type of loving, in its fashion,
not so much a thing of passion
as a Luddite’s fond affection
for a techie’s apt detection
of that complicated mess
that I fear I must confess
I never would have solved alone.
You won my heart, Chad, via phone!!!

This young Apple Tech worked with me for an hour and a half, then, when I had to leave for an appointment,  called me back a few hours later and worked for another half hour to wrestle two computers, an old nearly dead iPhone and a “new” used iPhone into sync.  I promised in appreciation that I’d write him a poem, so Chad, I hope you see this.  If you do, leave a comment.  Apple techies rock!!

Kitchen Chores and the Art of Divination

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The art of divination need not be limited to tea leaves. Was I scraping the bottom of the barrel or merely scraping dishes when I wrote this odd ditty three years ago?

Washing Up

The churning water brings them up.
The grounds of coffee in the cup
rise like saints to water’s top
while water runs, they do not stop.

I read their shapes like tea leaves now.
I see the future but know not how.
They swirl and change, revealing lives––
swarm like hornets from their hives.

The one I wait for comes unstuck,
careening towards his future luck.
The one that’s me caught in an eddy,
stuck for now, but holding steady.

Other remnants of finished meals––
carrot shards, potato peels––
rise up and circle, forming dreams.
Reality, or so it seems.

I see a heart and charm and lies,
a future lover in disguise,
a plane, a knoll, a tree-lined path,
a woman bound in senseless wrath.

She sends out waves that push you here––
the very thing that she most fears.
I know not who or where you are.
Are you near or are you far?

As all goes rushing down the drain,
I feel a sense of loss and pain.
And so I fill the sink again.
Will I see you one time more,
or was my vision only lore?

The prompt today was churn.