Category Archives: humorous poem

Holiday Reprieve

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Holiday Reprieve

Do you approach with trepidation
all this Christmas titillation?
When all its plans start to congeal—
the presents, decorations, meal,
all the usual preparations
and the usual perturbations—
perhaps you need to curb frustration
by taking off on a vacation.

Life is short. Don’t hesitate
if you’ve no wish to celebrate.
So much of Christmas’s elation
is a mere regurgitation
of the things, year after year,
we’ve done to try to raise some cheer.
If neither presents opened nor
those Yule carolers at your door
bring you peace and joy and cheer
even at this time of year,

more ways than one to cook a goose.
Open the cage and let him loose,
then pack a bag and take off, too,
to Zanzibar or Katmandu.
Go find a place that is less spangled,
simpler and less Xmas-angled.
Go examine life’s ecologies,
and I’ll make your apologies.

Prompts today are life, congeal, usual, trepidation and celebrate.

Helpers Needed to Organize Studio and Garage!!!

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Black onyx and white enamel pin found in my grandmother’s drawer and given to me by her, along with assorted finds..collected to be assembled into a retablo

I’m sure you want to see all this clutter close up. To do so, click on photos and arrows!! Does anyone need a never-used reverse osmosis system?

Helpers Needed to Organize Studio and Garage!!!

Rummage, rummage, mutter, mutter,
being buried by my clutter.
Do you know some agile sorters
who can straighten out my quarters?
I need helpers on the ball
who can divide and sort it all.
And before I ossify,
I’ll sit here and just bossify!!!

 

I really do have an organization scheme for my art studio, but this couple of years of frenetic activity there during Covid and to get ready for my November show have made me pull things out of storage–and once things are put back into their accustomed space, I somehow need to find more space there . And, need to get the lamps rewired and out of there!

My garage looks organized, but I have teaching files in there from 1971-1981 (when I quit teaching) and my Dad’s ranch records and tax returns from the 1950’s through 1974, when he passed away. Also, every letter anyone has ever sent me and every note passed to me in high school, along with class notes from college classes. How can I throw them away? What if the minute I do, I need them? All  of those fruit crates need to be broken down into slats to wait for Covid to ease so I can use them in art projects with the kids.  Too much, too many. I know.

 

Prompt words today are clutter, recommend, agile, ossify and ball.

Talking Turkey

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Talking Turkey

(A Thanksgiving Invitation Guaranteed to Encourage Friends to Insist
on Having Thanksgiving at Their House This Year!)

Feeling grungy, out-of-tempo, out-of-sorts and kinda mean.
Need a new Thanksgiving turkey, ‘cuz last year’s is turning green.
Can’t avouch for what would happen if I tried to serve it now,
but perhaps I’ll scrape the mold off and try to serve it anyhow?

Come to think, it’s penicillin, so how  dangerous can it be?
It might just be beneficial, so let’s try it and we can see.
I’ll whip up some new potatoes, open cans of cranberries.
Don’t forget to bring the pies. I await your RSVP’s!!!!

Prompts today are grunge, tempo, turkey, avouch and green.

The Rocky Road to Maturity

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The Rocky Road to Maturity

A state of ataraxia is simply not the norm
when a particular condition has taken you by storm.
It makes you feel ungainly and your customary grace
seems to gather syllables and turn into disgrace.

Moodiness and hormones and pimples and the rest
of the ills that mark this state don’t put you at your best,
and there’s a bigger problem once you survive your pubescence,
for it is just a prelude to the state of adolescence!

 

Word prompts today are customary, ungainly, prelude, ataraxia (tranquility) and particular.

Protected Zone

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Protected Zone

Our new pet’s experimental—
its domain an environmental
zone that’s been declared protected
ever since the kids detected
the cobweb that is stretched out there
between the wall and etagere.

The spider that constructed it—
every gossamer sticky bit—
and its process of mastication
is the object of much fascination.
Though I’d like to be done with it,
the kids have too much fun with it.

The spider, finished with its knitting,
spends the rest of its time sitting
surveying new bugs caught in it,
then eating what they’ve got in it.
And though I find this plot most grim,
it seems it’s more than just a whim.

We’ve been told we’re not to maul it
since Sis found a name to call it.
And that is why we’ve been adjusting
areas that we’ve been dusting,
and the web that’s stretched from shelf to picture
has become a permanent fixture.

Prompt words today are cobwebs, experimental, maul and picture.

Also, for dVerse Poets Open Link.

The Afterlife

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The Afterlife

When it comes to thinking about the afterlife,
differing opinions are likely to run rife.
Norse warriors were rewarded by a ticket to Valhalla.
Muslims aspire to Jannah after judgement day by Allah.
In order to prepare for it, a Catholic confesses,
hoping to atone in time for all his Earthly messes.

A protestant believes in heaven but not in confessing.
He deals with sins within his prayers and leaves his preacher guessing
about what he’s been up to, storing misdeeds in his head,
atoning for his weaknesses in private, before bed.
He fears if he’s a sinner or a selfish reprobate,
access might be denied to him at the pearly gate.

Atheists are cavalier, not needing a solution
to the ills they do on Earth, fearing no retribution.
The good they do in life is not for heavenly reward.
The charity they practice, done of their own accord.
Whether there’s an afterlife, they don’t pretend to know.
Comminatory actions limited to life below.

Afterlife or not, however, animals don’t worry.
They graze and swim and procreate, swim and fly and scurry,
unaware there’s anything wrong in what they do.
They do not pray on bended knee nor frequent any pew.
They live the lives they’re given, just following their nature,
not fretting over afterlives of any nomenclature.

 

Prompts today are afterlife, cavalier, coalesce, comminatory and weakness.

Beggars Can’t Be Choosers

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Beggars Can’t Be Choosers

My disgruntled spouse surveyed the plum,
then squeezed its flesh beneath his thumb,
saw that there were plenty more
in the tree that grew next door,
and though the crop was most abundant,
he merely saw it as redundant.

There were no grapes for him to filch.
Bananas? It had proffered zilch.
No oranges or apples to
seed and peel and slice and chew.
No limes or lemons to produce
a glass of fresh-squeezed zesty juice.

It made him sad and rather glum
to see plum after purple plum
hung on the tree. Could I dispute
his  claim that we’d have to commute
to steal instead various fruit?
I felt his argument was moot.

One must make do with what might come.
The progeny of plum was plum.
If he required figs or berries,
peaches, kiwi fruit or cherries,
he’d have to head out to the store
or plant a a dozen trees or more.

He’d have to mulch and trim and spray,
water every other day,
and wait for years for fruit to grow,
but he was hungry now and so
he went outside and picked him some
plum after plum and plum and plum.

 


Prompt words today are glum, commute, zilch and abundant. Images thanks to Marius Karotkis and Kelly Neil on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Writer’s Block

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Writer’s Block

Rip up your notebook and throw it away.
At heart, you know you have nothing to say.
The cadre of writers who came on before you
wrote legions of words guaranteed not to bore you.
They composed solid volumes of bountiful wit.
Their number of sales will verify it.
The drivel you write is mere uninspired lore,
so better you read what they wrote than write more.

 

Prompt words today are notebook,solid, bountiful, cadre and number.

Bedbound

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Bedbound

I have pain in my back and water on my knee
and not one single friend has expressed sympathy!
I’ve called every doctor in town to explain
my aches and my ills, but it’s all been in vain.

Not one can discover what it is that ails me.
Each remedy that I’ve sought out simply fails me.
The sun hurts my eyes and the rain brings depression.
It hurts when I walk but bed rest brings compression

that freezes my spine so I’m forced to just lie here,
seeking assistance from all who walk by here.
And although I’ve no appetite, still I must eat,
so there’s one request that I have to repeat.

If you’re going to town, could you help me out, please,
and bring me a pizza? Sausage. Extra cheese.
Because I’m so thin, the doctor prescribes beer.
and since there’s a Quik Stop that’s really quite near,

could you pick up a six-pack, some ice cream and chips?
For I simply must add some flesh to my hips.
My bones are protruding so far that they hurt
from the weight of the sheets and the thinnest night shirt.

I’m under the weather, headachy and  thin.
I cannot convey the bad shape that I’m in.
My offspring don’t care and my spouse says I’m making it
hard to stay with me because I’m just faking it.

I have to complain because I must confess it
is impossible when one is ill to repress it.
Although all my friends say I’ve bats in my attic,
these ills you can’t see are not psychosomatic!

Prompts today are under the weather, offspring, flush, repress and stay.

Zombie Ball

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Zombie Ball

Slice of liver, ooze of spleen—
add them to the soup tureen.
See all the pallid corpses preen?
They seek to woo the zombie queen.
Complexions chalky white or green
through the haunted house careen,
much rowdier on Halloween
than all the holidays between.

 

For dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge: Careen