Category Archives: Humor

NaPoWriMo Day 11: Strawberry Hill Forever

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Poets have been writing about love and wine, wine and love, since the time of Anacreon, a Greek poet who was rather partial to that subject matter. Anacreontics might be described as a sort of high-falutin’ drinking song. So, today our prompt was to write about wine-and-love.

Strawberry Hill Forever

So take we rum and take we Coke
and sippy-straws so we don’t choke
on ice and limes within our glasses
and fall dead on our tipsy asses.

Let us to Elysian fields
take our drinks and also meals:
cheese and grapes and shepherd’s pie,
potato chips and ham on rye.

Let us frolic in the lee
without your kids—just you and me.
Spread a blanket and have some fun.
Show ourselves to the morning sun.

If perchance you’d prefer wine,
well, you take yours and I’ll take mine.
I’ve chosen well. I think I will
take some Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill

found in a box of college things:
pennants, books and old class rings.
This dinosaur, screw top intact,
we must imbibe, it is a fact,

to stir libidos and memory
so I might take thee on my knee,
cop a feel of thy lovely ass
and roll thee in the green green grass.

Afterwards, we’ll fill our lips
with sandwiches and pie and chips.
No satyr dined on lovelier fare.
No nymph tasted food more rare.

And when the sun falls in the west,
we’ll cork our wine, pack up our chest
and hurry home. We can’t be late.
Your husband’s getting home at eight.

NaPoWriMo, Day 10: Neo Burma-Shave Ads

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Our prompt today was to write a poem advertising poetry.  The third one is not quite an ad, but it has the cadence.

Neo Burma-Shave Ads

Make your words
both scan and rhyme.
Writing poetry’s
not a crime!

Get a seed of thought
and sow it.
Once it grows,
you’ll be a poet!

Robert Frost at the Movies

Robert’s poems
scanned and rhymed.
His meter? Even
and well-timed.

Yet when he tripped
on slippery tile
and dropped his
poems in a pile,

the usher hissed
in tones most vile
to get his “feet”
out of the aisle!

NaPoWriMo Day 8: Slack One Lying On the Cobblestones

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Our prompt today is to write a poem based on another famous poem. The poem suggested is this one written by Cesar Vallejo and translated by Robert Bly:

Black Stone Lying On A White Stone

I will die in Paris, on a rainy day,
on some day I can already remember.
I will die in Paris–and I don’t step aside–
perhaps on a Thursday, as today is Thursday, in autumn.

It will be a Thursday, because today, Thursday,
setting down these lines, I have put my upper arm bones on
wrong, and never so much as today have I found myself
with all the road ahead of me, alone.

César Vallejo is dead. Everyone beat him
although he never does anything to them;
they beat him hard with a stick and hard also

with a rope. These are the witnesses:
the Thursdays, and the bones of my arms,
the solitude, and the rain, and the roads. . .

This is my version of Vallejo’s self-eulogy:


Slack One Lying On the Cobblestones

I will die in Mexico, on a zany day,
on some day when memory fails me.
I will die under the feet of a burro––as I don’t step aside––
perhaps on market day, as today is market day, in a fall.

It will be a market day because today, market day,
buying new shoes, I have put them on
the wrong feet, and never so much as today do I find myself
having problems negotiating all the cobblestones ahead of me, alone.

Remi is dead. That burro walked on her
although she never did anything to him;
he tromped her hard with his hooves and hard also

with his trailing rope. This is what was left:
her shopping bag, the bones of her dignity,
her bolillos, her new huaraches, and the road. . .

(Note:  Remi is my preferred name to be called by friends, although few consent to do so.)

NaPoWriMo Day 7: Fidelity

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Our prompt today was to write a love poem.

Fidelity

Each morning when I wake
to shrill alarm or sweet bird song,
depending upon the requirements of my day,
you are the first to greet my opening eyes.
You rest there on the pillow next to me
in the bed where first I, then you,
have fallen to sleep the night before
too soon, too soon,
before half our words were said.

After a quick trip to the john,
it is the first stroke of my fingers
that bring you finally to life.
Your countenance lights up
and the same love words
I revealed to you last night
are returned to me.

My hands caress
and new words come easily
first to me, then to you.
I touch gently all
your fine smoothness,
getting back
everything that I give
equal measure,
continuing our long love story
of give and take
as I shift your light frame onto my lap
to stroke your separate parts
from question mark to exclamation point.

Could a PC ever rouse this passion in me?
No way, MacBook Air. Thou art my love!

(I forgot to mention before that this love poem was to be written to an inanimate object. My love affair with Macs has extended over 30 years—from my very first floppy disk table model to my new love…the ultralight MacBook air.)

NaPoWriMo Day 3: Unlove Spell

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Today’s NaPoWriMo challenge is write a charm – a simple rhyming poem, in the style of a recipe/nursery rhyme. It could be a charm against warts, or against traffic tickets. It could be a charm to bring love, or to bring free pizzas from your local radio station. I’ve decided to give a recipe to dispel the pain of an unfaithful lover.

Unlove Spell

For relief from suffering­­­ and a cure for love,
pluck a feather from a dying dove.
Press the feather in a hemlock crotch,
then fill a cauldron with his favorite scotch.
Wait for dark and stormy weather
to stew the hemlock crotch and feather.
Then add as listed all given below,
stirring steady with flame turned low.
Write your lover’s entire name
over and over and over again,
then shred this page of purple prose
with a thorn you’ve pried from a withered rose.
Add the paper, shred on shred,
recalling what he’s done and said.
Cast in the pot, till your mind is freed,
each slight recalled, each dreadful deed.
Add a patch you’ve torn from his favorite chair
and a single strand of his pubic hair,
wedding pictures of Niagara,
nose trimmers, hair dye and Viagra.
Add his hernia girdle and knee-length socks,
his shoes, his T-shirts and his jocks.
Cut all his pants off at the knees
and add them to his soggy T’s.
Stir the cauldron round and round.
If music’s playing, turn up the sound.
Sing along to the lyrics of
song after song of broken love.
“Don’t come home a cheatin’ with a lovin’ on your mind.”
Let these lyrics fill your thoughts—or others of their kind.
Call his mother on the phone. Say what he’s done to you.
Record her comments, rip out the tape, and add it to the brew.
Call all his girlfriends, all his buddies, everyone on your block,
Tell them that he’s impotent and has a little cock.
Write a note of what you’ve done and tape it to the pot.
Turn off the flame. Walk out the door. Forget the whole damn lot!!!

NaPoWriMo Day 1: Ode to Picasso

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Time for NaPoWriMo again.  The challenge is to write a poem a day.  Today’s challenge is this:

“The prompt for all you early birds is an ekphrastic poem – a poem inspired by or about a work of art. There are no rules on the form for an ekphrastic poem, so you could write a sonnet or a haiku or free verse. Some well-known ekphrastic poems include Rilke’s Archaic Torso of Apollo and Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn. But ekphrastic poetry is alive and well today, too, as your efforts today will reflect.”

Here is the lithograph I based my poem on:
Picasso

And here is my poem:

On Picasso’s Imaginary Self-Portrait

Is it conceit or self-knowledge
that makes you paint yourself
in the ruffed collar
of Shakespeare
or a clown?

Satyr, young at heart,
your merry countenance
masks darker moods and behaviors,
the bright pigments
hiding a more somber undercoat.

Picasso,
your children
and your mistresses
might paint you as master:
stern, egotistical,
but always with the backlit inspiration
of genius.
Yet, old goat,
you paint yourself a clown.

The Leaf Never Falls . . .

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. . . very far from the tree.

My sister sent me this message and poem that my mom wrote for her egads–over 50 years ago!

Hi there–
I was looking in a box of letters & memorabilia (including my Salutatorian speech from high school, of all things) that Mother gave me years ago, and I found this poem she wrote for me on my birthday one year. It’s so great I have to share it.

A POEM

I’ve used my best china,
Which I’ll wash–I bet.
I made you a cake
Which you already “et”

I’ve washed your clothes
And made your bed,
But please let this all
Not go to your head

Today is your birthday
But tomorrow is not,
So you’ll do your own jobs
You little–darling girl.

P.S.
In regards to your room,
I had meant to do more,
But I took one look
And made for the door.

She was so clever; I wonder if I appreciated it then?

xxoo Patti

The Drop of the Third Shoe

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We have been told our electricity (and thus, our water) will be off all day, so I’ve filled all the sinks and the tub and every pitcher in the house with water to aid in rehydration, flushing and dirty dishwashing.  Now, an hour and a half past the time I was told we’d lose power, we still have it.  Strangely enough, last night I found my bedroom door was permanently locked and could not be opened by key or turning the knob.  Same was true of my back door…and my kitchen door knob is about to fall off.  I finally had to take my bedroom door off the hinges as I had to go outside to get from my bedroom to the rest of my house.  Everything seems to be going on strike at once.  I’m waiting for the third shoe to drop.

Update:  Give me a hammer!  Give me a screwdriver! Give me an ice pick! Give me some WD-40!  Give me some muscle! Give me two magazines and one copy of Three Cups of Deceit (which is exactly the same thickness as the crack under my bedroom door).  And what have you got?  S-U-C-C-E-S-S!!!!!  I fixed both of my doors.  Took one off the hinges, rejigged the doorknob (thanks, ice pick), WD-40’d it excessively, realigned the door with a lot of muscle and various combinations of the book and magazines and hammer, and got the pins back in and the lock works—and opens!  The back door just took WD-40 and the hammer.  I’m still not so sure that someone didn’t try to jimmy it open as I had to pound the lock plate back flat, but—the third shoe that dropped was, I hope, the fact that I did two of the repairs myself and I am now able to freely move through my house…. Applause, please.  Comments will do!

The offending door, dismantled

The offending door, dismantled

And Diego zipped into the open door, ran to his cage, nosed the door open and slept through the entire thing. This is not punishment. He loves his little cage--for sleeping only. He is a puppy and still has the chews.

The repaired door, back on its hinges.

And Diego zipped into the open door, ran to his cage, nosed the door open and slept through the entire thing. This is not punishment. He loves his little cage--for sleeping only. He is a puppy and still has the chews.

And Diego zipped into the open door, ran to his cage, nosed the door open and slept through the entire thing. This is not punishment. He loves his little cage–for sleeping only. He is a puppy and still has the chews.

Scissors, Tissue Paper and General MacArthur

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DSC08186 DSC08162  DSC08184 DSC08180l

Every year, my mom helped us make May baskets to fill with candy and leave on the doorsteps of our friends. As mentioned in an earlier post, we’d ring the doorbell and run. If the recipient caught us, they could kiss or pinch us—their choice.

Some years we bought fancy handled nut cups from the dime store and used them, but I liked best to make my own. One year, my mother showed us something special to use for May baskets. Her family knew how to make these incredible tissue-paper ornaments that, with a cupcake liner filled with candy glued into the bottom, hung down in a web-like form. We’d pin them at the top and when you held them up they would fall down in a lacy accordion effect so they were a foot or two high. The only way you could really get the effect was to put them on the floor and hold up the top part or hang them from something.

She didn’t remember whether it was her mother or one of her seven older siblings who taught her how to make them, but about five years ago, when I went to the International Music festival in Adelaide, Australia, I went into one of the tents on local cultures around the world and saw my mom’s May baskets hanging all over the tent! It seemed surreal. The tent was displaying handicrafts from the Philippines, and it turns out that my mom’s May baskets were actually hand-cut Philippine lanterns. Suddenly, it all made sense.

My mother’s older sister had married an army officer who served under General MacArthur and my aunt had become a very good friend of Jean MacArthur. She told a funny story about going to a ball and not having a dress to wear and either Jean persuaded my aunt to wear one of Jean’s very fancy satin nightgowns or vice versa. (Wish I’d written down all these family stories when they were fresh.) Anyway, when MacArthur was sent to the Philippines during the war, he took my Uncle Tubby with him.

Jean MacArthur elected to stay in the Philippines with her husband and at one point, my Aunt Betty was there as well. She talked of journeying through headhunter country and other adventures I have forgotten and that she had perhaps embellished, but the point of this circuitous story is that obviously, it was my Aunt Betty who brought the tradition of hand-cut Philippine tissue paper lanterns back to Junction City, Kansas, creating a family tradition that I must remember to hand down to my three nieces—the last surviving members of the family who might be remotely interested in how to create three-dimensional beauty from a flat piece of tissue paper.

I’m going to stop now and go to find two sheets of contrasting color tissue paper and a pair of scissors, to see if I even remember how!!! I’ll post a picture if I figure it out. (I, alas, could find only one piece of tissue paper, so I’ll have to post a less-spectacular example of this family craft that after three tries, I finally remembered.)

Now, I’d love for you to pass along a story about one of your own special family memories, handicrafts or recipes by posting it on my blog.

Happy Mayday, five days late. Happy family memories and here’s to passing them on.

Time Temporal (Final Day––Day 30––Of NaPoWriMo)

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The prompt on this last day of National Poetry Month is to find a shortish poem that you like, and rewrite each line, replacing each word (or as many words as you can) with words that mean the opposite. I chose Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare.

Time Temporal

by Judy Dykstra-Brown

Shall I contrast thee to a winter’s night?
Thou art less lovely and more tempestuous.
No wind disturbs November’s empty stalks,
Oe’r which the winter hath too long a power.
Sometimes the too-cold moon lies sheathed in clouds.
And rarely does its pitted face shine forth.
Yet light from dark may rise. We’re proof of that,
Spurred on by fate or providence’s  plan.
But thy short winter soon shall pass away,
Restore to thee the homeliness of death.
Nor shall that birth that brought you forth to light
Still claim thee when time curtains you with night.
As men lose breath and eyes  give up their sight,
So dies this poem, and you echo its plight.

Sonnet 18

by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.