Category Archives: Humor

Good Dog

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Good Dog

Before they strapped a chain link trinket around his coal black throat,
a hundred loving strokes a day smoothed his black fur coat.
He had a special diet stacked neatly on a shelf,
and though it was placed low enough for him to reach himself,
he never helped himself to it, and right up to this writing,
I never heard one word of his barking or his biting.
A paragon of virtue, he expelled no doggie farts,
and though his nose was yearning to explore some private parts,
he kept it strictly to himself, polite without a lapse,
and came running with his flouncy gait to whistles or to claps.
In short, he was the perfect dog—sleek and trim and dark,
so when his master took him running in the park,
he always got a special treat in his own private cup,
and to reward his human, he lapped the whole thing up!


I photographed this good boy in the park in Sheridan, Wyoming, where I went with my friend Marti, and since I am a good girl, I lapped up a cup of chocolate and salted caramel ice cream myself as well!

Prompt words today are expel, trinket, self, flounce and writing.

Yesterday’s Cars

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Yesterday’s Cars

Yesterday’s cars slanted down where they should
have had fins at the tail, and were square at the hood.
Some required a stepstool to enter the door,
then had a big bump centered there in the floor

The grandfathers of cars weren’t for the faint-hearted.
They required you crank them before they got  started,
and inevitably, when the tires went flat,
a service station wasn’t where you were at.

With no Triple A, the onus was on you
to figure out what you had to do.
The jacks were all manual. Tubes needed air,
so many the driver gave up in despair.

With Mom in the front seat and kids in the rumble,
dad  would pump and unscrew and blather and bumble,
then put out his thumb to beg for a ride
in a car that was passing that had room inside.

He was not feinting his look of distress,
and neither was mom, although I confess
it was an adventure for sister and me
who watched the procedure giggling with glee

as inevitably, he would hoof it to town
and we’d open the car doors, jump happily down
and cavort in a field, searching out hidden treasure
and picking up cockleburs in equal measure.

Then when dad caught a ride back with a fixed wheel,
we’d drive on to a diner for a well-deserved meal,
then be on our way, trouble-free and much faster
for the rest of our trip that was free from disaster.

 

And HERE are another two special photos of Model A’s you won’t want to miss.

Prompt words today are yesterday’s cars, slope, require, feint and inevitable. Image by Philip Schroeder on Unsplash. 

I must admit that this particular situation is fiction, although the predicament certainly must have been reenacted many times in an era earlier than mine.

Well-Armed

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Well-Armed

Folks who are idolatrous
have deified the octopus.
The Durga of the watery world,
with her many arms unfurled,
when she suffers from upheaval,
she turns dangerous and evil.

Don’t underrate this ocean creature—
a lethal underwater feature.
Rankled, she exacts revenge,
her disturbed leisure to avenge,
for warfare is the medium
with which she relieves tedium.

A predator from dawn to dawn,
I could write an essay on
the sustenance she preys upon.
First they’re there and then they’re gone,
turned into impromptu feast
by this many-suckered beast.

This queen of the underworld
is lethal with her arms unfurled,
so if perchance you come upon her,
do not think that you can con her.
For if you try, I have a hunch
you might become her choice for lunch.

 

Durga is a fierce warrior goddess. She is depicted in Hindu art as riding on a lion or a tiger. She has many arms and is always brandishing a variety of weapons.

Prompt words today are octopus, essay, upheaval, rankle and medium. Image by Serena Repice Lentini on Unsplash. 

Fourth of July 2021––Wordle 508

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Fourth of July

The sky’s effervescent with bubbles of fire
rising ferociously higher and higher.
With a new surprise every minute or so,
where are the cowering animals to go?

The dogs bark their distress and squirrels in their trees
burrow down deeper into the debris
of nut shells and pine needles, avoiding the grief
of loud explosions, seeking relief.

Meanwhile, on the borders between land and skies,
children look on with wide saucer eyes,
waiting for each pyrotechnic surprise,
ooohing and ahhing as rockets arise.

The patterns they make as they rise ever higher
are finery formed from gunpowder and fire.
Their beauty paid for by distress to the ears,
first from the explosions and then from the cheers.

Forget the poor animals. Have your loud fun,
but my days of fireworks I fear are now done.
Snap me some photos and send me a card.—
I’m spending the Fourth right here in my backyard.

 

Wordle Prompt Words: fire, poor, surprise, rising, card, finery, sky, form, , effervescent, border, ferocious.

For theJuly 4, 2021 Wordle Prompt.

Different Strokes

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Different Strokes

I believe I’ve lost my juju. I’m throwing in the towel.
If I were a mason, I’d be throwing in the trowel.
I’m too light on pragmatic and strong on fanciful.
I’m not achieving much but my life is never dull.
I’m terrible at numbers, organizationally lax—
a non-controversial drawback when it comes to paying tax.

I have a different point of view based on imagination
which works for writing poems but does not work for pagination
where “one” must always lead to “two” and “nine” must follow “eight.”
If I were timekeeper, the whole cosmos would run late.
The fact that I’m disorganized cannot be debated,
but it’s going way too far to say I’m addlepated.

The world needs many opposites to balance out each other.
For every north there is a south, for every dad a mother.
Sober’s stirred by silly and warm thaws out the cold.
Calm smooths out the erratic and meek balances the bold.
So if I tend toward fanciful, don’t issue an indictment.
There’s way too much reality. We need some more excitement.

 

Prompt words today are pragmatic, terrible, controversy, juju and towel.

Enough

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Enough

At six o’clock, glib comments start to fill the air.
We’re hungry for frittata, but the table’s bare.
Darkness fills the kitchen, for mama’s gone on strike.
She’s gone off to the city. Alone, on papa’s bike.

It’s dicey whether she’ll return. She says she’s tired of cooking.
She’s in need of a vacation and so she made a booking
at a posh hotel that has its own cafe
where she will dine on coq au vin followed by crème brûlée.

For once, serving the rest of us will not be her fate.
Someone else will  wait on her and she’ll just sit and wait.
In the morning she will order service in her room
where she’ll not even make her bed or wield dust cloth or broom.

Her note says then she might come home, or she might just wait
and find a nice seaside resort where she can cogitate
for another day or two. She says we shouldn’t worry.
The pizza place delivers if we’re not in a hurry.

Her recipe book’s on the shelf. The stove is  under it.
Her apron’s in the closet and she’s sure that it will fit
each and every one of us while she is on vacation.
She says that fending for ourselves will be an education.

She says to wash the dishes even though it is a bore,
for if she sees a messy kitchen when she walks in the door,
she’s going to walk right out again until we prove we’ve learned
that things will be real different after Mama has returned!

 

 

 

 

Prompts for today are six, glib, frittata, dicey and darkness.

Just Desserts

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Just Desserts

Was my brother ornery or was he merely dumb?
Once he told me rubber bands were a new sort of gum
that didn’t blow good bubbles, but at least you could rechew it,
saving you the money of having to renew it.

Given any option, he was bound to choose the crazy one,
and if the choice involved some work, sure to choose the lazy one.
He always had ideas about how to do work faster,
and without exception, they resulted in disaster.

Like the time he used Dad’s blowtorch to trim all of our trees,
not taking into full account the briskness of the breeze
and set the house on fire, slightly singing the outside,
and when the firetrucks arrived, he asked them for a ride!

Once when men came to fix the roof, I heard the kitty mewing
and knew at once there was a chance that more mischief was brewing.
Whatever put it in his head to waterproof the cat
by dipping it from tail to neck in the tarring vat?

He’d do things like putting red ants inside my skirt,
and when my folks weren’t watching, he’d spit on my dessert,
then eat the rest himself when I asked to leave the table.
He found ways to torment me whenever he was able.

Entertainment such as this was what amused my brother,
giving ulcers to my dad and white hairs to my mother.
But growing up with brother turned out fortunate for me,
for he gave a clear pattern of what I shouldn’t be.

And now that I have kids myself to tend and love and cook for,
I have a sure advantage, for I know just what to look for.
I see things with my brother’s eye and remove such temptations
that might lead to misdirections in their moral educations.

And as for my brother’s childhood deportment flaws,
just desserts were finally served. I know this because
fate dished out the punishment for his childhood errors
by giving him two sons that I hear are holy terrors!

Prompt words today are waterproof, idea, head, ornery and option.

Special Delivery

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Special Delivery

Fetch the doctor and bring him home.
I’m giving birth to a new poem.
If he gives you the runaround,
I guess I’ll be hospital-bound,
for I’ve got fever, cramps and chills
that can’t be cured by any pills.

I’m falling into a big pit
and I can’t get rid of it.
The lacuna waits for me.
It is the well of poetry
that I’ll fall into if no saint
comes to rid me of the taint
of words that rhyme or words that don’t.
 I fear that if the doctor won’t,
surely I’ll be ripped apart
by narratives that must depart.

They’ve been gestating so long
that I fear something will go wrong.
So call the doctor. Tell the fellow
that my fingers have gone yellow
from the words that can’t get out.
I’m getting rheumatism, gout.

I’ve got a mass within my heart
and I don’t know how best to start
to free the words that must be born—
that from my body must be torn.
Womb and brain and heart and spleen
stuffed full but yearning to be lean.

Emptied of words, stripped to the core,
then I”ll have room to sprout some more.
For though I grow the poems right well
and have fine stories I can tell—
although I’m bursting with the stuff,
I know that words are not enough.
For years they have been telling me
it’s all in the delivery.

 

 

Prompt words are fetch, runaround, chills, yellow and lacuna.
Photo by Freestocks on Unsplash.

Gardening in the Rain

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Gardening in the Rain

It started with a gentle tug
to trim a succulent from a jug
stuffed full with hardy hens and chicks
but tugs turned into pulls and picks
Until the pockets of my pants
and both my hands were full of plants.

By then, I was already soaked,
for as I pushed and pulled and poked,
the storm that had been gentle  drops,
turned into pelts and then to plops.
Since cool rain was a respite from
days of heat and glaring sun,

I loitered some along the way
to see what new additions lay
along the path that stretched between
the lower garden where I’d been
and the house far up above—
that toasty place—that cushy glove.

But then there was that empty pot
(whose jade plant we’d moved to the lot)
where there was dirt but plants were not
and all those cuttings I’d just got
stuffing my pockets, filling hands.
Can you see how the plot expands?

Thus it went that for an hour
I stood there in the soaking shower
restoring beauty to the pot 
where formerly beauty was not.
Then, dripping in my sopping clothes,
I used my sleeve to swipe my nose

and shed my clothes all at the door,
tracked wet prints across the floor,
hung up wet clothes and dried my skin,
then used the towel to wrap me in,
and meant to dress and have a meal,
but couldn’t help it, had to steal

to the window for one look more,
then opened up the sliding door,
and, one hand clasping tight the towel,
I headed out with garden trowel
to add if needs be one plant more
to the pot planted before.

I love gardening in the rain.
and see no reason to abstain.
With no sun to scorch my skin,
no reason to remain within.
And since I loved where i had been,
What I did once, I did again.

 

(Click on photos to enlarge and read captions to hear the rest of the story.)

Then I spotted those hen and chicks
and other overgrown pots of succulents.
but that didn’t stop my collecting,
It was then that I remembered the empty flower pot on the boulder near the pool.
Nearby was a large-leaf jade plant I’d been meaning to trim back
and a number of offshoots from a plant beside the sidewalk
And before I knew it, the empty planter was empty no more.
Four hours later, my blouse is almost dry.

 

Nature Lesson (A Discourse with Bee and Hummingbird)

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Nature Lesson
(A Discourse with Bee and Hummingbird)

It has a beauty most divine,
that flower swinging from the vine,
and yet the hummingbird and bee
come not to ogle but to dine.

The flower swinging from the vine
has a nectar sweet as wine
with a savor most divine.

And yet the hummingbird and bee
must know that it belongs to me—
theirs not to savor but just to see.

Come not to ogle but to dine?
It seems the lesson learned is mine.
What nature’s given is also thine.

 

For the dVerse Poets Trimeric Prompt

To read other poems to this prompt or to post your own, go HERE.