Category Archives: humorous poem

Advice to Dorothy as She Elopes with the Tin Man

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Advice to Dorothy as She Elopes with the Tin Man

I can’t fathom your limerence. Why would you settle
for an older lover who’s made out of metal?
It’s good to be flexible, but don’t you think
that this is a rather impossible link?
Your honeymoon’s bound to be rather a bust.
If you go to the beach, he is likely to rust,
or if you go skiing, his joints will freeze rigid.
It’s hard to make love to a tin man who’s frigid!
You’re young and you’re limber. Your life’s at its start.
Why pick a lover who hasn’t a heart?
Please take my advice when it comes to men:
no lions, no scarecrows, no men made of tin.

 

Prompt words for today are flexible, gambit, limerence, fathom and metal.

Mama’s Brief Lapse

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Mama’s Brief Lapse

I simply will not gossip. I’ll reveal not one small detail
about the time your mom decided, “No more buying retail!”
Hereafter, she’d cruise bargain basements, seeking out her booty.
Designer stores? Off-limits. Prada? Way too snooty.

This concept lasted months, at least, but it was just a phase.
One morning, she emerged as though she’d been in a haze
and had a small epiphany, there lying on her chaise,
climbed into her Ferrari and headed to Hermès

where the road to her recovery was smoothed by flattery
in corsetry and ballgowns, in sportswear and in hattery
as she restored her wardrobe with finery more grand
than she had ever managed buying second hand!!!

 

Prompt words today are smooth, snooty, details, haze and concept.

Presidential Seal

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Presidential Seal

He’s an annoying sycophant, his screw loose in its socket.
One hand in the treasury, the other in his pocket.
What he may label progress is progress just for him
and his self-serving buddies. For the rest of us, it’s dim.
What’s seen as prosperity I fear is selling out.
How can it be that all cannot see what it’s about?

He’s selling off our parklands. Selling off our world.
The seas rise up to claim us. The hurricane’s unfurled.
The fires blaze around us. Nature has gone spastic
as it disgorges methane and chokes on all our plastic.
Lady Liberty’s in mourning. Our flags all fall to tatters.
Our leaders lost in their affairs instead of in what matters.

Our people, so short-sighted, will be called upon to pay.
The eagle on his office crest is but a bird of prey.
Both eagles and vultures are adroit at seeing,
but they are not equal when it comes to being.
I fear the presidential crest now marks what he will steal.
Its bird is now a turkey for a reigning monarch’s meal.

He claps his hands and purses lips–a barking preening fool–
as he does his silly act upon his circus stool.
He gives the presidential seal a different connotation
as he balances upon his nose the future of our nation.
Hoping that this earthly globe is one that he won’t drop.
Hoping his buffoonery one day soon will stop.

Prompt words today are annoying, progress, vulture, adroit and seeing.

Mutter

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Mutter

Did you hear the scandal? Did you hear the “rumor?”
Did she break a fingernail? Does she have a tumor?
She isn’t going to write a poem. She doesn’t like one word
suggested as a prompt today. She thinks they are absurd.
Nothing to rhyme with “traffic.” She’d rather play in it
than try to think up any rhyme if “ruckus” has a say in it.
Her salad days are over. She’s too old to be this clever.
When she saw the word “cycle,” her muse just muttered, “Never!”
So for the second time this week, she’s whining and complaining.
But I see the prompt words tricked her, for she used them while explaining!

 

Prompt words today are traffic, rumor, cycle, ruckus and salad.

Turn about Does Not Play Fair

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Turn about Does Not Play Fair

If your social popularity has wandered off the track,
here’s a little good advice to help you get it back.
Practice your endurance. Listen when friends tell
all those oft-heard stories, even though you know them well.
But don’t expect the same from them when they show inattention
with each repeated story that you are going to mention.
Your stories retold more than once lack the fascination
of their latest version of their favorite rumination.

Prompt words today are go, social, track, endurance and listen.
This photo used for illustrative purposes only. In no way is this poem actually about these two lovely women.

The Temp in Accounting

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The Temp in Accounting

His prospects of affluence seem to be shrinking
in direct proportion to what he’s been drinking.
Lately it seems that the hours he’s been working
are less than the hours that he has been shirking
his tasks of the day. When we look at his history,
I must admit it’s a bit of a mystery
why they’ve retained him for even this long,
for he’s more attached to his lighter and bong
than he is to his actuarial tables.
His financial projections?  Primarily fables.
In short, his behavior is simply pubescent
and prospects of tenure likely evanescent.
When the boss went to find this latest young bloke,
he found he’d stepped out for his hourly toke.
All in all, I think I’m not amiss in projecting
 he’ll be more temporary than he was expecting.

 

Prompts today are evanescent, history, prospect, affluent and working.

Love Prone

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Love Prone

His heartfelt joy was palpable. His maelstrom of affection
spread throughout his body—a beneficent infection.
And yet he was resilient when his lover proved untrue.
He simply found another girl and fell in love anew!

Prompt words for today are maelstrom, palpable, heartfelt and resilient.

The Dress

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The Dress

She was blithe of nature and at the harvest dance,
men both young and aged straightened at her advance.
Noting her graceful movements across the grange hall floor,
the men all watched the flowings of the summer dress she wore.

Though the women called it skimpy, men found the dress divine
as it lifted out around her when they passed her down the line,
and as she was dipped and glided,
more than just a few collided.

So were girlfriends’ natures tested and marriage vows stretched thin
as boyfriends, partners, spouses contemplated sin
watching that skirt’s movements, its gentle falls and flow
as it swirled out around her with every do-si-do.

 

 

Prompt words today are skimpy, advance, nature and blithe. Photo is a detail from a photo by Amy Kate on Unsplash. Used with permission.

“Different”

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When my husband and I did arts and crafts shows, at least once during every show, someone would wander into our booth, have a good look around, and as they left, shrug their shoulders and say, “Well it’s different!” (Usually pronounced “differnt.”) It actually was an in joke between those displaying their art—always interpreted as the speaker not understanding and not really liking the arts and crafts. Growing up in a small town, it was not the first time I’d heard the word in its derogatory sense. Thus, this poem: 

“Different”



When I finally made my way into the world so wide
I found myself exotic. Somehow transmogrified.
I liked being the foreigner, eminent in my oddity.
I found that being different was a definite commodity.
It was my prerogative to be just who I was
without creating currents in the small town buzz
of that place I had grown up in. My acts were less explosive.
My strange words now acceptable, not garnered as corrosive.
They thought my strange behavior typical of my nation—
those oddities of word choice and excesses of oration.
So in being totally different, somehow I felt more the same.
In finally being somewhere where different was not a sin,
the more different I was, the more that I fit in!!!

 

Prompt words today are explosive, prerogative, foreigner, eminent and wide.

Fresh Produce

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Star

 

Fresh Produce

I lived in an era before eggplant or Swiss chard,
with fruit that mainly grew up from our own back yard.
Cherries and strawberries. Watermelon. Plums.
No passionfruit or mangoes passed across our gums.
One day avocados would become a revelation.
Papayas and fresh guavas discovered on vacation.
But artichokes back then were thought the product of the devil.
We kept our veggies smooth and round and strictly on one level.
Exchange with foreign countries back then was truly rare.
So many foods from far off climes we’d had no chance to dare.
These days all our grocery stores are filled with all this stuff,
but long ago potatoes, beans and carrots were enough!!

 

Prompt words today are eggplant, exchange, devil and revelation.