Category Archives: Humor

Mean Woman Blues at the Corner Bar: NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 28

The NaPoWriMo prompt today is to write a poem that is a series of questions. Mine are all song titles save for one famous line from literature.

Mean Woman Blues at the Corner Bar

Him: What’s up Pussycat? Are you lonesome tonight?
Her: Can you mend a broken heart?
Him: Do-ya do-ya do-ya do-ya wanna dance?
Her: Who are you?
Him: Hello, Hello. Bad, bad Leroy Brown. What’s your name?

Her: Hello. Mary Lou!
Him: Ever dance with the Devil in the pale moonlight?

Her:  Who let the dogs out?
Him: If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?
Her: What’s going on? Hang on, Sloopy!
Him: Wouldn’t it be nice?
Her:  (Looking down,) Is this a dagger which I see before me?
Him: Can’t you see, can’t you see?
Her: Is that all there is?
Him: Do you really want to hurt me?
Her: Would you still love me tomorrow?
Him: What’s love got to do with it?
Her: How did it get so late so soon?
Him: Does anybody really know what time it is?
Her: Should I stay or should I go?
Him: Do ya think I’m sexy?
Her: (taking out her car keys) Do you know the way to San Jose?
Him: Are you going to go my way?
Him: (To her back as she walks out the door) What’s goin’ on? Am I that easy to forget?
Him: (To the room at large) Can’t you see, can’t you see what that woman, she been doin’ to me?
A stander-by:  What I can see clearly now is what becomes of the broken-hearted!

In case you want to play along or read more poems written to this prompt, here is the NaPoWriMo prompt . Photo by Milo Bauman on Unsplash, used with permission. If you doubt any of the song titles or want to know who sang them, just Google them. I ran out of time or I would have made links.

Moratorium

Moratorium

I’m waging a campaign against your excesses.
You don’t need more shoes or jewels or dresses.
I’m sending a notice to wherever you shop
that your random purchases just have to stop!

Your profligate spending’s way out of control.
Abstemious behavior should be your new goal.
I abhor that I’m having to start this campaign
and hope that my efforts will not be in vain.

I’m not suggesting that you turn ascetic,
It’s simply that your present life is pathetic.
You buy and you buy and you buy and you buy
’til the Amazon boxes are stacked to the sky.

Then you head to the mall to buy a bit more,
’til your closet is fuller, I swear, than the store!
Now my salary cannot keep up with the strain,
so I must insist, dear, you try to refrain.

To help, I have cancelled your credit cards, then
tackled your charge accounts, closing all ten.
I’ve taken you off my bank account, too.
hoping to try to educate you

to the fact that life’s more than spending and spending.
I hope that my excessive acts will be ending
your own excesses, and that you’ll find
new hobbies to fill your acquisitive mind.

Prompt words today are random, abhor, abstemious, ascetic and campaign.

Eulogy

Eulogy

Men whistle, catcall, stare and stalk
and even vagrants stop and gawk.
Old ladies cluck their tongues and talk,
but I can’t help the way I walk.

My talent was not learned of late.
It’s rumored that it is innate.
My mom, a flapper in her day,
was zany, silly, clever, gay.

And now I ooze with her pizzazz,
her craziness and all that jazz,
or so Dad says. And long-dead embers
spark in his eyes as he remembers.

She’s only stories heard, a name,
a face within a silver frame
on the nightstand of my dad—
the mother that I never had.

She never held me in her arms
or schooled me in feminine charms,
but I have her spirit and her butt.
In this I am most fortunate.

So I resurrect her daily,
imagining her as I gaily
sway and flirt. It is a token—
a eulogy with no word spoken.

Prompts for today are pizzazz, fortunatevagrant, innate and frame. The photo really is of my mother, but the poem is fictional. My mother taught me lots of things, but not how to walk seductively!!! ;o)

Mad Poem: NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 26, Parody

Mad Poem

We’ve been pinned to our homes
for a year, maybe more,
and after a month
it’s turned into a bore.
We’ve stared at computers
or the walls of our rooms,
our social encounters
just tweets, Skypes or Zooms.
We’ve missed our Starbucks,
the beach and the mall.
Our range of diversions
has been nothing at all.
Restaurant after restaurant
called on the phone
has said they were closed
and to leave them alone.
When we called up our friends,

we had nothing to say
for we did the same things
for day after day.
We yearn for the freedom
that will come with a vacc.
It’s not fair that our elders
can get what we lack!

 

My poem was a parody of the Dr. Seuss poem below:

Sad Poem

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a parody of another poem. 

Blind Fashion

Blind Fashion

They were a fashionable couple, noted for their dress,
attired on all occasions with a unique finesse.

She dressed up on work days in a crinoline and sash.
He even wore a coat and tie when taking out the trash.

Her shape was rather pandurate—thinner in the middle
and very broad down by the hips, rather like a fiddle.

His hair  was thin and patchy with many bald spots that
might have gone unnoticed if he had worn a hat.

So, though they dressed for fashion, they didn’t dress for shape.
He should have worn a tam and she should have worn a cape.

 

Photo from Unsplash, used with permission. Prompts today are  pandurate, work and  finesse,

NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 25: Bad Timing

 

Bad Timing

On my birthday in July, my true love gave to me
a coupon for a ski trip and a real live Christmas tree.
Chocolates when I’m dieting, sad songs when I am gloomy.
A grand piano, though my new apartment’s not too roomy.
The week that “Save the Animals” appointed me their chair,
he bought me a new winter coat of lynx and llama hair.

He brings home ice cream in the cold, hot cocoa in the summer.
When I broke my tooth, the peanut brittle was a bummer.
Though his gifts are generous, my thanks are often mimed,
for I’m speechless over just how badly all of them are timed!
The reason why we are not wed is so hard to relate.
I had the cake, the rings, the gown. We set the time and date.

The groom showed up and waited as I walked down the aisle.
My wedding dress was finest lace, my undergarments lisle.
I’d planned each detail out with care and left no stone unturned.
Just one detail  left to him–you’d think I would have learned!
For when I went to say “I do” to this  man I adore,
they found our wedding license had lapsed two weeks before!

 

For NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 25, we are to write a poem about a special occasion.

Kissing Frogs

Kissing Frogs

If you blow on a warty frog, he’ll worship you for life,
and if you are a princess, he might make you his wife.
Of course it won’t be easy with an amphibian beau,
for you’re sure to draw attention everywhere you go.
Although you’ll be very high and he’ll be extremely low,
as you hop along together, he’s bound to find you slow.
He won’t be good at dancing for with that tiny bod on him,
it will be a certainty that some dancer will trod on him.

A certain growth of character is a prerequisite
for any royal daughter to go along with it.
Your kids would be unusual for though a son or daughter
would excel at feats like swimming in the water,
when it came to royal functions, their gooses would be cooked,
for in any ceremony, they’d be overlooked.
So it’s all right to blow on frogs, to kiss them or to carry them,
but if you are a princess, it is best that you don’t marry them!

Prompts for today are blow, worship, warty, prerequisite and growth.

Old Boyfriends: NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 24

 


Old Boyfriends

Old boyfriends
are also known as
“cut boyfriends”
or “parasol boyfriends”.
Old boyfriends originate mainly in the USA.
They are found in eastern and south central Texas.
They also can be found in parts of western Louisiana.
Old boyfriends are not commonly found in subdivisions,
but are considered an agricultural, rural pest. 

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt today  is to find a factual article about an animal, making sure it repeats the name of the animal a lot.  Then go back through the text and replace the name of the animal with something else – it could be something very abstract, like “sadness” or “my heart,” or something more concrete, like “the streetlight outside my window that won’t stop blinking.” You should wind up with some very funny and even touching combinations, which you can then rearrange and edit into a poem.

The animal I looked up was the leaf cutter ant. Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Hopscotch Flunky


Hopscotch Flunky

When I hop on one foot, I am destined to fall.
Too much scotch and less hop is the cause of it all.
When they said toss the rock, I threw out my ice.
Any shock that I haven’t been asked to play twice?

The dVerse Poets prompt today is to write a poem in anapestic tetrameter

Baby Talk

 

Baby Talk

They are not merely drivel, these noises that you coo.
You accent their importance with everything you do.
Your waving arms and thrashing feet, your pooched lips all implore
that we try to learn your language to see what they are for.

I guess it is inevitable that our efforts fail
to try to learn your lingo beyond giggle, frown and wail,
for although we’re sympathetic, we do not get your gist.
So please forgive our ignorance of messages we’ve missed.

We’ll shoulder all the blame for this lack of understanding,
knowing all too well that by the time that you are standing
you’ll have learned our language, making you the fastest starter—
proving once again that you are by far the smarter.

 

Prompt words today are inevitable, sympathetic, drivel and shoulder.