Category Archives: Humor

Family Christmas Visit

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Family Christmas Visit

“Halleluiah” she cried when I walked through the door.
It was clear I’m the sister she tends to adore.
My mercurial rise to the top of her list
began on the day that I chose to exist.
In particular, days when she finds her life taxing,
she finds me essential to aid her relaxing.
It’s tempting to say it’s because I’m so cool,
but I don’t think it’s that as a general rule.
I think that my charm is that I’m so familiar.
The power of my presence is merely familial.

After 24 hours with no sleep and a crazy two and a half hour trip through Guadalajara airport and still nearly missing my plane, it was a blessing to finally arrive in Phoenix and to eventually
sink into a bed for a four-hour sleep. It took another hour or so to get online, where these prompts awaited me. Now it is 7:23 at night—twelve hours after I arrived—and I’m finally getting my prompt poem written. I showed my sister the five prompt words and asked her to give me the first line, which I changed a bit and used as the first line of this poem. Blame her, partially, for prompting the rest.

Prompt words today are hallelujah, mercurial, essential, relax, tempting.

Forgottenman suggested I add a few photos of Patti and me from the past and I always mind, so here they are. Click on photos to enlarge.

With our Xmas dolls, in Betty’s green checked bedroom.
First day of school. I think I was in the 2nd grade
Patti and I under the rose trellis.

First Date Optimism

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This week, the prompt words were doozies. It might help a bit to explain that the incredibly obscure word “demesne” (which is a piece of land one has sole title to) is pronounced to rhyme with “pain.” I’ll leave it up to you to determine the meaning of “whiffle” and “obfuscate” from the context in which they are used. Not my fault, folks. It was in the prompts!!!!!

First Date Optimism

You exaggerate the matter if you say I’m your demesne.
That untruthful statement is purely most insane.
What started out a whiffle, you’ve made into a gale
by weaving our first date into a fairytale.

But I must take exception to your bending of the truth.
You are not my Boaz and I am not your Ruth.
If you think I’ll marry you after our first date,
As I said in the beginning, I fear you obfuscate!!!

 

Prompt words for the day are obfuscate, except, whiffle, demesne . Image by Priscilla du Preez on Unsplash.

Empty Pockets at Fifty

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Empty Pockets at Fifty

My pockets are turned inside out.
No riches do I have to flout.
This state of my intimidation
is perhaps an apt reflection
of my early hesitation
to obtain an education.
Perhaps if I had done my math,
I’d have pursued a richer path!

Prompt words today are pocket, intimidate, hesitation, spoil and reflection.

Air Despair

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Air Despair

I get goosebumps every time I travel via jet,
but I haven’t  crashed and burned or perished as of yet.
Pedants say my chances of crashing are remote,
but nonetheless, if I could choose, I’d rather take a boat.

The revelry is greater and the distance to the ground
is cushioned way much better with water all around.
It’s easier to stretch one’s legs, there’s shuffleboard, a pool,
and every cabin has a bed with private sink and stool!

Although planes are faster, what’s the hurry? What’s the rush?
Consider airplane food, the tiny restrooms and the crush.
First class in planes has nothing on last class in luxury cruisers.
In short, I think planes were invented for impatient losers!!

Prompts today are revelry, jet, pedant and goosebumps.

Poetic License in a Temperate Climate

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Poetic License in a Temperate Climate

December’s moved south of the border where it isn’t so icy and cold,
but still of all of the months of the year, it’s the one where the weather’s most bold.

It’s that time of the year where I profit from staying in bed until nine,
my bed being where I feel warmest—snuggled in blankets, supine.

At seven and eight it is silent, each dog still curled in his bed,
as I burrow into my poem of the day, rousting it out of my head.

It finds a new home on my hard drive, thus quelling my need to relate
as all of my creative juices suddenly seem to abate.

As my poetry swells to fruition, I finally stir from my nest
to dress in my toe socks and leggings, my sweater and wooly warm vest.

A poem survives any weather, surrounded by peers on the screen,
but even in temperate countries, December remains the most mean.

By April, I’ll feel warm and toasty and I’ll need a different reason
for staying in bed until nine when it is such a perfectly temperate season.

 

Yes, it’s true. I even wear them in bed!  Prompt words today are December, profit, silent,
quell and home.

Family Feud

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Family Feud

The quarrels in my family are numerous at best.
If I say they are ubiquitous, believe me, I don’t jest.
Daddy’s always angry. Mama’s always in a tiff.
If discord had an odor, you’d always get a whiff
as you wandered past our windows or entered our front door,
and if you thought to mention them, we’d only produce more.

Bring up race relations and there’ll be no interstice
between Daddy’s rants and ravings that display his prejudice
and Mama’s stepping in with her opposing point of view.
Then before you know it, they’ll unite to lambast you!
We seldom have a visitor and have no friends at all.
No salesmen knock upon our door and no neighbors call.

If I threw a slumber party and had friends to spend the night,
the angst here’s so infectious that we’d have a pillow fight.
No cousins ever join us at Thanksgiving to give thanks
because our extended family has fired us from its ranks.
We are the loneliest clan in town, and that for sure’s no fiction.
But— if we have nothing else, at least we have conviction!

 

Before you ask, this is fiction! Prompt words today are ubiquitous, tiff, prejudice, interstice and mention. Image by Afif Kusuma on Unsplash.

School Discipline in Transylvania: The Sunday Whirl, Nov 30, 2021

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School Discipline in Transylvania

The screen door bangs. I’m off to school
where the teachers think they rule,
but I think I see signs of worry
on my teacher as I hurry
into class and take my seat.
Already, he displays defeat

before the spit wads take their toll,
betraying who is in control.
A first and then a second wad
sails through the air and towards his bod.
He lifts his face to the attack,
then calmly turns to show his back.

He writes his name and then the date,
then waits for missiles to abate.
Sucks in his breath and turns around
to silence. There is not a sound
as shooters wilt and drop their ammo,
reacting to our teacher’s whammo.

It’s like a screen lifts from his face,
his old self gone without a trace,
a second visage in its place.
His eyes are bulging out in space,
his forehead furled beneath his bangs,
his teeth protruding out like fangs,

like a vampire’s wont to do,
his face a sickly pallid hue.
His fingers curl into long claws,
occasioning a longer pause.
Hushed silence reigns. Lectures begin.
This teacher has great discipline!!!!

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle, the words are : control, worry, school, see, face, date, screen, shooter, attack, sucks and second. Image by Tra Nguyen on Unsplash.

Turkey Talk for Tuesday Writing Prompt

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Turkey Talk

When we walk, our wattles wobble
causing us to “Gobble gobble,”
but seeing axes near our neck,
we hit the road and run like heck!
We await November with much gloom,
for your Thanksgiving seals our doom.
It is a truth that we all rue
that then our gobbling ‘s done by you.

 

 

For the Tuesday Writing Prompt,Nov 23, 2021: Write a poem from the point of view of a turkey.

Weirdest Poem Ever

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Suttee Reevaluated

Baked potato, sweet potato, makes me sigh.
Put butter in the schism and my oh my.
Sure to go right to your thigh,
but I don’t care. Do you know why?

Baked potatoes taste so good,
they soothe the pains of widowhood.
Place other pleasures on your lips.
Forget about your waist and hips.

Suttee is way overrated.
That fact cannot be debated.
So instead of jumping in,
go and raid the potato bin.

Toss taters on the red hot coals
and reassess your former goals.
Get a life. Take off the ring.
immolation’s not the thing.

 

Prompt words are sweet potato, schism, sure, immolate and good.

The Rear Admiral Earns His Title

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The Rear Admiral Earns His Title

The ensign and Rear Admiral, together in a boat,
after their ship’s sinking, the only ones afloat,
were trying to determine what caused their craft to sink,
dumping them at midnight from their sleep into the drink.
“Who’s at fault?” they speculated.
What misdeed had instigated
this horrific interlude
that left them soaked and nearly nude?

What meeting could be worse?
Could any tryst be more adverse?
And thus they squandered precious time
in expostulations and in mime
when they could have better plotted
in the time they were allotted
how to get out of this mess,
for it’s true, I must confess

that the boat they were in now
had a knothole in the bow
and as they fussed and fretted,
their feet and  then their legs were wetted
by seawater seeping in
that was soon up to their chin,
and  of the highest and the lowest
the one who turned out to be slowest

was cast out upon the sea,
claiming his priority,
while the one who was most rapid,
keen of eye and much less vapid,
grabbed the only life vest there
where there should have been a pair,
and shifted into his high gear
leaving the admiral in the rear.

 

Prompts for today are: meeting, squander, instigate, ensign and fault.