Category Archives: humorous poem

Impertinent Food: NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 20

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Impertinent Food

I don’t enjoy it when food talks back.
A potato chip or Crackerjack
makes too much noise when you are chewing,
and gives away what you are doing.

Beans tattle in retrospect
so all around you folks suspect
that you have eaten of their fruit,
betrayed by legume’s blatant toot.

Food should be eaten but not heard.
That it talks back is most absurd.
That’s why edibles less rude
are my favorite sorts of food.

NaPoWriMo prompt: I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that anthropomorphizes a kind of food.

Culinary Apologies

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Culinary Apologies

Though some would say that I’m a flake
when I’m called upon to bake,
and though I qualify just barely,
I feel I’m typecast most unfairly.

True, I rank with all the rookies
when it comes to baking cookies,
and my cupcakes don’t win prizes
at anything but worst surprises.

Nonetheless, my precedent
at providing less than I had meant
is never intentional.
It’s just that I am rather dull

when it comes to pleasuring
by sifting, baking, measuring.
I lack that culinary calm
so never cook without a qualm.

When I baked banana bread
and measured powdered sugar instead
of flour, yes, I must confess
it created an awful mess.

And when I burned the chicken stew
because I had so much to do,
I hope that you remember that
I trimmed the plants and fed the cat,

wrote a poem and made some art,
(scorched the toast and burned the tart)
took the puppy for a walk,
phoned a friend and had a talk.

So though my fridge is lacking stuff,
I find my life is full enough
All in all, what I’ve got cookin’
may not be where you are lookin’.

Prompts today are flake, calm, intentional, typecast and precedent. (If you want to read about the powdered sugar debacle, click on the link where it is mentioned in the poem.)

Early Release

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Early Release

He barely saw the morning view, he was in such a pother.
He skipped his juice and pancakes. He simply couldn’t bother.
Today no one could find a way to dispel his grief.
His nervousness was clear to all. He couldn’t find relief.
His summer bliss was over. The truth blatantly cruel
as his worst fears came true at last with the first day of school!
He dragged his book bag in the dust and lagged behind the others.
He’d be out at the fishing hole if he had had his druthers.
Pencils his ma had sharpened, he broke against the wall,
so when he had to write things down, he’d have no way at all.
He used his brand new ruler to pry up stones and rocks
to catch red ants and spiders to tie up in his socks.
He caught a lizard just before it zipped under a log,
and put it in his pocket with a field mouse and a frog.
So when he got to school he’d have ample ammunition
to bring the brand new school marm to a sure state of contrition
for imprisoning them all inside on such a nice fall day,
and school would get out early if he had his way!

Prompt words for today are grief, nervous, pother and morning view.

Syncopated Poesy

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Syncopated Poesy

An iamb becomes a trochee and an anapest a dactyl.
Spondees get less pointed and  the pyrrhics turn more tactile.
Syncopated Poetry turns everything around.
Loud words get hushed down and the quiet words pick up sound.
“By the shores of Gitcheegoomie” loses all its zing.
That’s what comes from meddling with a verse’s swing.

 

The Daily Spur post for the day is syncopate. In case you’ve forgotten, below are the metrical feet of poetry: iamb ul, trochee lu, dactyl luu, anapest uul, spondee //, pyrrhic uu

Syn·co·pate:to displace the beats or accents in (music or a rhythm) so that strong beats become weak and vice versa. Or, to shorten (a word) by dropping sounds or letters in the middle, as in symbology for symbolology, or Gloster for Gloucester.

The Confessions of Catwoman: NaPoWriMo 2022, Day 5

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The Confessions of Catwoman

What’s happening tomorrow?
the same thing that happens every Friday
since I was forced into retirement last year.
I’m going to go make my collections.
It will be my first day off the diet
I’ve been on for a week––
and my leathers aren’t at all as close-fitting
as they were before,
so I deserve a small reward.

That diet was low-protein, low carb and low fat,
which left nothing but grass, right?
And the problem with that was that everyone thought I was sick
and so tried to trick me into a dose of this or that.
The cod liver oil wasn’t bad,
but I’ve never developed a taste for Pepto Bismol.
A neighbor lady once sneaked some into my cream
and I gagged so hard I coughed up a hare-ball—
just the nose and whiskers, actually, but it created a sensation, nonetheless.
I was at a party and no one was yet drunk enough
to take it in their stride.

I’ve washed my hair—
Well, no surprise. I do every day.
A bit OCD on that activity,
but today I washed all of me.
Every inch.
Ears, too.

I can’t remember when I first thought
of the lucrative business
I’ve been opurrrrrrrating since my retirement;
but I do remember that tomorrow is the day
I go from door-to-door doing collections.

I usually dress in leathers,
which I look pretty good in for a mature sex-kitten.
No, not a biker chick.
I am more of a femme fatale
with a haunting and mesmerizing voice
everyone says sends chills down their back—
a sort of backyard Les Mis.

I’m a night person.
I sleep for most of the day
and go out every night.
I park my Catmobile,
then take shortcuts: leaping over walls,
soft-toeing it along the top edges of fences.

Sometimes I crouch in the bushes,
waiting for strangers to pass.
As I do, I sharpen my fingernails—
a weapon no one can take away from me.
Anyway, what good would a gun be
for a woman with no opposable thumbs?
Hey. Don’t feel sorry for me, okay?
I’m puurrrrrfectly happy with my lot in life.
I’m puurrrrfect without them.

I am sexy, fit and nimble.
I fill out my leathers in all the right places.
I can jump to the ground from a rooftop,
land on my feet and be off before you see
any more of me than a shadow.
I am a thief by birth and inclination, and I
I pre”fur” my daily fare to be purrrrrrloined.

I can take swift revenge and kill mercilessly,
or curl up and enjoy
a long petting session,
as docile as you please.

Actually, I don’t know why I’m giving you this sales pitch.
I usually ignore people,
so when I actually notice them,
they are honored.

Anyway, I’ve gotten distracted.
I’m just going to smooth my hair a bit
and then go to bed and get rested up
for tomorrow’s collections.
What kind of brilliant feline was I to create a job for myself like this?
“Cat Woman Pest Disposal––You trap them, we collect them.”

I actually get paid for going from door to door,
collecting a course here and a course there.
No of course, no matter how hungry I am after my week’s fast,
I will not reward myself in my client’s presence.
I always wait until I get to my catmobile to have my first nibble.
After all, even a retired superheroine has to watch her image.

The prompt in day 5 of NaPoWriMo is to write a poem about a mythical person or creature doing something unusual – or at least something that seems unusual in relation to that person/creature. 

Disclaimer

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Disclaimer

He epitomizes henpecked. He’s disheveled and confused.
It’s monstrous the degree to which this househusband’s abused.
I’d be concerned except, you see, they’re only playing house
and it is my three-year-old who plays at being spouse.

I don’t know where she gets it, for her pattern can’t be me.
I am the perfect paragon in our family.
But since it’s also true that monkeys do as monkeys see,
it must be that she gets it from the movies or TV.

 

Prompt words for today are dishevel, henpecked, concern, epitomize and monstrous.

Soulful Severance

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Soulful Severance

I’m cutting off my spirit guide and giving him his severance,
for lately I’ve been feeling that I’m lacking in my reverence
for his dapper manner and instructions way too lyrical.
I find that I prefer experiences more empirical.

I’m tired of being programed by a creature less than physical,
finding his decisions to be outmoded and  quizzical.
From now on, I’ll be of this world and quite a bit less soulful,
living my life to the hilt with mentors much less doleful.

 

Prompt words today are: guide, severance, lyrical, dapper and program. Image by JR Korpa on Unsplash.

Tall Tales: The Rest of the Story

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Tall Tales: The Rest of the Story

It is my conjecture that you’re given to embellish
all of your old stories that you recite with such relish.
Your lyrical relation at such volume and such length
has informed us of your valor, your virility and strength.

Your life stories, meant to guide us, seem to form a primer for
how to conduct a perfect life behavior but what’s more,
should tell us about settlements and suits that might occur
because in spite of all the truths you proclaim and aver,

folks with all the answers can be a pain to bear—
the sort that former comrades want to get out of their hair.
So former wives and partners might seek to find surcease
by divorce or severance of contract or of lease.

So, after you have told your tales of glory at your leisure,
will you tell your tales of suit, foreclosure and of seizure?
If there’s a moral to the story, I have to say that it’s
that those who tell the longest stories tend to leave out the best bits.

Prompt words for today are: guide, conjecture, lyrical, relish and settlement. Image by Camila Quintero on Unsplash.

Poor Sport

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Poor Sport

From the Rockies to the Tetons, I’ve avoided climbing rocks.
They crumble as I climb them and wind up in my socks.
I do not like their labyrinths that make you find a way
to snake up on their surface without a game of play.
Don’t expect me to climb mountains. Don’t even think to ask.
I’ll sit here in the shade and watch and sip upon my flask!

 

Prompts for today are labyrinth, snake, flask and Tetons.

That’s me back in 1973. I didn’t climb mountains then, either. You can tell by the shoes. This was taken in Lalibela, Ethiopia, a very mountainous place. Didn’t make any difference. I flew in on a tiny plane  and  rode a mule up one or two. That’s as far as I went.

Mr. “Do It Myself”

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Mr. “Do It Myself”

The manifold reasons I love you are these.
Though you puff and you pant and you groan and you wheeze,
recruiting much help from your back and your knees,
nonetheless, my piano you managed to squeeze
up the stairs to the tower, saying it was a breeze.
So as I snap a photo, be sure to say, “Cheese,”
then promise me, dear, for I’m down on my knees.
If we move it again, hire a moving crew, please!!!!

 

 

 

Prompt words today are recruit, piano, manifold and tower.