Category Archives: Humor

A Regal Final Breath, for RDP Wednesday

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Her Highness Contemplates A Seemly End

Nobility in dying is something I shan’t botch,
for I know it shall be one that the whole wide world will watch.
I cannot go by fire, for I’m sure I would be screaming
as the water quenched the fire and set my flesh to steaming.

So unseemly and so crass. I’d find it unappealing.
So, too, a rope around my neck, hanging from the ceiling.
Jumping from a roof won’t do. Nor will a gun nor pills.
Every sort of suicide just sports too many ills.

It’s clear that death by avalanche is the only one
that will really suit me when the day is done.
A certain swift clean fall of snow seems such a pristine death.
A queenly mode of dying. Such a regal final breath!

For RDP Wednesday the prompt is REGAL

Must admit that I am rerunning a poem I wrote for RDP six years ago. At that time the prompt was was “avalanche”, but as you can see, the poem works for “regal” as well!

Reblog of Poem Published in 2019 Mistakenly Attributed to Dr. Seuss with Note from the Real Author

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Just today, Nov 4, 2025, I received this message from “Handy Barker” concerning this poem he wrote, which was quoted as a Dr. Seuss poem everywhere I could find it, or I would have attributed it to him. Here is the note I received from him, which I am publishing along with my apology:

Again, sorry, Handy…

Purse Supplies, for Cellpic Sunday

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I know this is a very weird photo which is why I had to include it instead of the one I’d planned.  I read my poetry at a twice-monthly large reading at a local hotel/patio restaurant on Friday which was Halloween, and when I returned to my seat,  I noticed everyone at my table had a white stick sticking out of their mouth and then noticed  this  little sucker on the table in front of my chair. Unnoticed by me, the reader before me had delivered Halloween treats to each table, so I tucked mine into my purse with my pens. Only later when I opened the flap of my purse, did I see it nestled in with other “necessaries.” I couldn’t resist snapping a photo. 

for Cellpic Sunday

Halloween Humor for Fibbing Friday

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For Fibbing Friday, the definition task at hand is:

  1. Why does garlic repel vampires? It throws off their sense of smell, thus no “Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman!.”
  2. What do you need to kill a werewolf? The present tense.
  3. What is the purpose of a Jack-o-lantern? To enable one to see to change a tire in the dark.
  4. What exactly is a ghoul? A rental trailer for ghosts.
  5. Why can’t vampires enter a home unless invited? Vampire etiquette.
  6. Why can’t vampires cross running water? Because they can’t catch it.
  7. What does a chupacabra eat? Father snakes.
  8. What is the name of the three-headed dog that guards the gates of the underworld? The Three Dog Knight
  9. Who are the Stygian Witches? Witches who hog all the brew.
  10. What alcoholic beverage is thought to be the true origin of witches’ brew? Any distilled “spirit.”

 

More Fibs for Fibbing Friday

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A Jailed Jiminy

The task for Fibbing Friday this week is to define:
1. Ripsnorter: A surfer joke.
2. Rinky-dink: A very small skating arena
3. Rapscallion: A green onion served in a buffet at the end of filming.
4. Recalcitrant: Describing someone about to go back onto their diet. 
5. Rickrack: Lucillle Ball’s bosom.
6. Rut-roh: Slang for Canoeing the Colorado River
7. Redonkulous: A scarlet buttercup
8. Rammy: Da da’s Mama
9. Rickety-crickety: A decaying zoo enclosure for insects
10. Roodle: A tasteless piece of pasta

“Firm Ground” for Ragtag Daily Press

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Firm Ground

Between all of you and me,
I’ve no experience with scree.
Given the type of ground to walk on,
scree’s the surface I would balk on.
Other folks may be adventurous.
My choice is usually ventureless!

The RDP prompt is “scree.”  (Image borrowed from the RDP prompt site.)

Dental Retaliation

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Dental Retaliation

Do you remember toothbrushes lined up on a rack
in the medicine cabinet, at the mirror’s back?
Your father’s brush was ocean blue, your mother’s brush was green,
your sister’s brush the reddest red that you had ever seen,
whereas your brush’s handle had no color at all—
as though it was the ugliest sister at the ball.

How you yearned for color, reaching for your brush
as the first summer’s meadowlark called to break the hush
of the early morning while you were sneaking out
to be the first one out-of-doors to see what was about.
Making that fast decision, your hand fell on the red,
thinking your sister wouldn’t know, for she was still abed.

You put toothpaste upon it, wet it at the tap
and ran the brush over each tooth as well as every gap.
Each toothbrush flavor was different, your older sis had said,
so you thought it would be different brushing your teeth with red.
Your father’s brush was blueberry, your mother’s brush was mint.
Your sister’s luscious cherry—its flavor heaven-sent.

“But because you are adopted,” your sister had the gall
to tell you, “they gave you the brush with no flavor at all.”
You waited to taste cherries, but that taste never came.
That red brush tasted like toothpaste. It tasted just the same
as every other morning when you brushed with yours.
You heard your sister stir upstairs, the squeaking of the floors.

You toweled off her toothbrush and hung it in the rack
and started to run out the door. Then something brought you back.
You opened up the mirror and grabbed her brush again.
A big smile spread across your face—a retaliatory grin.
The dread cod liver oil stood on the tallest shelf.
You were barely big enough to reach it for yourself.

You dipped her toothbrush in it, then quickly blew it dry.
Replaced it, shut the cabinet, and when you chanced to spy
your own reflection in the glass, each of you winked an eye.
Then you ran out to cherry trees to catch the first sunbeam
and brush your teeth with cherries while you listened for her scream.

(Not a true story, by the way!!!)

 

For One Word Sunday the prompt is “Teeth.” Image created with help from AI.

“Bad Sport” for SOCS

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Bad Sport

I don’t do sports, nor watch them, either.
A one block jog? I’d need a breather.
At volleyball, I don’t excel.
Touch football is a sort of hell.
For passing time, by hook or crook,
Jog on alone. I’ll read a book!!!

The Stream of Consciousness Prompt for Oct 18 is “Hook.”

“Boogaloo” and Other Mysteries Solved, for Fibbing Friday

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(Image created with help from AI)

The Fibbing Friday task-at-hand is:

1. Why is there no ‘three quarters back’ in American Football (you have a quarterback, halfback and full back) ? Because you already have one quarterback. It would redundant to have  two more.
2. What is a stickleback? A French back-scratcher.
3. What is a boogaloo? Quarters for an Eskimo ghost.
4. What is Victoria’s Secret? Falsies.
5. What is in a Victoria sandwich? Coins kept in a tiny coin purse tucked into her cleavage.
6. What is the secret of the Black Magic Box? All of its magic leaked out long ago.
7. Why do mice squeak? Not enough oil in the cheese.
8. Where will you find a TRV? Usually, right after a TOPSY.
9. What is a Demo? Someone who didn’t vote for Trump.
10. What is a toadstool? A poorly-placed stool often run into in the dark. Ouch!

Meeting Mr. Right for Weekly Writer’s Workshop

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Meeting Mr. Right

Scrabble, Dice and Mexican Train—
I play them once and then again,
while he won’t play a single game
of any sort or any name.

I like to travel. He sits at home.
Walmart’s as far as he will roam.
Won’t go to movie theaters, clubs,
exhibitions, galleries, pubs,

museums, fiestas, meetings, for
such crowding makes him hit the door.
Tourist attractions leave him numb
and make him wonder why he’s come.

I fill my house with Mexican art
that drains my purse but fills my heart,
but my artful clutter makes him frown.
His décor? Purely hand-me-down.

I like people. He sits alone.
His desk chair is his chosen throne
where he supervises the internet—
the biggest nerd you’ve ever met.

I dance whenever I’ve the chance,
but you might have guessed—he doesn’t dance!
He’s six-foot-two. I’m five-foot-six.
Yet tall and short just seem to mix.

I know our friends and family
find us an anomaly.
for these differences are just a start.
We’re 1600 miles apart!

So how can he be my best friend
when our differences never end:
a scorpion talking to a crab,
a Chihuahua running with a Lab?

What makes our congress less absurd?
We’re both addicted to the written word!
We both love puns and definition.
Apostrophe errors? Pure sedition!

While others discuss films or drama,
we dissect uses of the comma.
We discuss dashes from en to em,
and how the world misuses them!

Splitting hairs but not infinitives,
sound editing advice he gives
for everything I write online.
If words were grapes, he’d strip the vine

of sour grapes and slugs and weeds
and after he had done these deeds,
the wine would pour more sweet and rare,
culled out by his loving care.

And so it goes here on my blog.
In its machine he is a cog—
mending lost links and feeling free
to cut that spare apostrophe.

To wrestle errant prepositions,
question faulty suppositions,
to polish off each word writ wrong
until a ditty becomes a song.

We meet each day on the cyber page
that is the parchment of our age.
While you meet others of your type
at coffee bars, we meet on Skype.

Our discourse clever, funny, rare.
We do not pine and ache and stare
eye-to-eye hour after hour.
For us, it’s words that carry power.

The Prompt for This Week’s Writers Workshop is: Meeting