Category Archives: humorous poem

Travel Primer

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Travel Primer

We wander narrow alleyways in countries that are foreign—
negotiate their tunnels, like rabbits in a warren.
We do not pay attention as we ogle and we gawk
who may follow closely—who may observe and stalk.
We are naive travelers. We’re innocents abroad.
One listens to our narratives, then signals with a nod
just as we are reaching to try to reimburse,
for another watcher to swoop down on our purse.
Then they’re off down alleyways where we are loath to go
where they’ll have their own adventures—financed by our dough.

 

 

Today’s prompts were stalk, abroad, narrative and foreign. Links are here:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/rdp-sunday-stalk/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/19/fowc-with-fandango-abroad/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/your-daily-word-prompt-narrative-may-19-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/foreign/

Lucky: The Pleasures of Advancing Age

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(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Lucky
(The Pleasures of Advancing Age)

If I were a golfer, I fear there’d be no putting,
for my grass is lush and verdant— badly in need of  cutting.
Meanwhile, the bougainvillea has gotten out of hand.
It’s like a barbed wire jungle—every twisted strand.
If I were more rambunctious, I’d grab work gloves and scramble
to gas up the mower and to tackle every  bramble,
but those days of industrious gardening are far back in my past.
Those Olympian feats of plant and tend simply didn’t last.
Instead I lie here in my bed growing and trimming words.
Outside, through the curtains, I hear the wakening birds.
I hear the front gate opening, make out the squeak of wheels.
Is there a single reader who detects how good it feels
to just fluff up the pillows and type on throughout the dawn
as Pasiano trims the thorny vines and mows the blasted lawn?

Prompt words today are verdant, meanwhile, rambunctious and lucky. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/13/rdp-monday-verdant/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/13/fowc-with-fandango-meanwhile/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/13/your-daily-word-prompt-rambunctious-may-13-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/13/lucky/

Empty Stocking

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Empty Stocking

Early in September, below the slippery slide,
Ella McLauglin asked me if I would step aside
and let her have a turn at it before I took another,
and since I looked around and couldn’t see her older brother,
I said no girls could play on it. This slide was just for “men,”
then bounded up the ladder and slid on down again.

Later, In October,  I thought it would be fun
to raid our neighbor’s pumpkin patch, to smash them and then run.
Some friends wanted to help me, but I wielded the bat.
Those pumpkins all exploded with such a lovely “splat!”
Mr. Cramer chased us, but he fell and hit his head,
and by the time he reached our house, I was snug in bed!

At the beginning of November, right after Halloween,
I opened sister’s window and removed the screen.
I found her bag of candy, making off with all the best,
leaving her with licorice and apples and the rest
left over after I had taken chocolates and  toffee.
What I left? The gross flavors like cinnamon and coffee!

But for all of December, I remembered to be good.
Mom had said that Santa kept accounts and that he would 
know if I was naughty, so I knew this was the time
when I needed to be perfect—the very paradigm
of virtue, yet in spite of this, I must sadly relate
that all my efforts to reform simply came  too late.

It seems that I just waited too long in turning face.
You can’t just come in sliding tardily into base
when it comes to changing “naughty” check marks into “nice,”
for Santa checks his naughty list more than once or twice.
Next Christmas I am going to be sure that I remember,
that Santa also checks the months that lead up to December!

 

 

Only two prompts  had been posted by 4 a.m. this morning when I was ready for a rhyming.  Those prompt words were slide and paradigm. Here are their links:
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/12/fowc-with-fandango-slide/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/12/your-daily-word-prompt-paradigm-may-12-2019/

Premeditated

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Premeditated

I’ve got you in my crosshairs, you can’t escape my aim.
In fact it’s very obvious I’ll wound or kill or maim.
Do you see my lifted eyebrow? Is my message coming through?
It should not be ambiguous what’s happening to you.
I really have it in for you. It’s true I mean to bite you.
You’re fully in my power, so there’ll be no need to fight you.
There’s no other fate in store for you. No other choice to make.
After twenty-one days of dieting, I’m having me some cake!!!!

 

 

The prompt words are crosshairs, ambiguous, obvious and eyebrow:
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/10/fowc-with-fandango-crosshairs/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/10/your-daily-word-prompt-ambiguous-may-10-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/10/obvious/
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/10/rdp-friday-eyebrow/

 

Escape?

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photo with permission by Adam Stefanca

Escape?

Tourists of every size and shape
visit the zoo to stand and gape
at lion, leopard, tiger, ape.
They eye its thickness as they gape
at chainlink, conjure up the scrape
of claws on metal, then on nape.
What is their likelihood of escape?

 

 

Today’s prompt word is escape.
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/09/escape/

Uneducated Palate

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Uneducated Palate

I haven’t a fine palate. I barely can distinguish
between the different dishes that I’m given to extinguish.
I do not know a dumpling from a fancy knish.
I do not have an inkling of the different sorts of fish.
So if you’re short of delicacies and you have to skimp,
just dole me out some hot dogs and save your fancy shrimp
for someone who appreciates the difference between them,
for I am just a landlocked girl who’s never even seen them!

 

Today’s prompt words are distinguish and skimp. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/09/rdp-thursday-distinguish-distinguished/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/09/fowc-with-fandango-skimp/

Jackman and Jillian

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Jackman and Jillian

Jackman and Jillian ascended a height
because they were parched and required respite.
They possessed a flagon they desired to fill,
yet calamity transpired as they mounted the hill.
Jackman descended more quickly than planned,
Ruptured his cranium, fractured his hand,
rent his best raiment, untidied his hair,
while she also swooped downward on her derriere.

 

After reading my poem that parodied pretentious words today and writing her own, Christine Goodnough challenged me to write a poem parodying pretentious language.  Can’t refuse a challenge, so. . . .

(See our earlier poems by clicking on links above.)

Not a Clue

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Not a Clue

“Jejune” is a word that I bet you don’t know.
It simply means tedious, dreary or slow.
Guileless or boring, simple or naive—
artless and unworldly with naught up your sleeve.

When it comes to semantics, jejune folks won’t quibble.
They do not distinguish between drip or dribble.
When they need a haircut, please tell them they’re hairy.
Calling them “hirsute” will just make them wary.

If  big words should reach the apex of your tongue,
consider taking it down just a rung.
Jejune folks like small words like “pretty” and “cute.”
Words like “alluring” will render them mute.

Words like “obstreperous” also won’t do.
If you use a big word, they won’t have a clue.
Don’t call it a “wen” when it’s merely a pimple.
Things are much clearer when words are left simple.

 

 

Chritsine issued me a further challenge after she read their poem, so I wrote another. You can fine a link to her challenge and also my poem–short and silly– HERE.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/08/rp-wednesday-grateful/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/08/fowc-with-fandango-semantics/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/08/your-daily-word-prompt-jejune-may-8-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/08/apex/

Mac and Cheese

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I dedicate this poem to my ultimate chef friends Dolly
and Gordon, hard as it may be for them to bear.

Mac and Cheese

“Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat; stir in flour, salt, and pepper until smooth, about 5 minutes. Slowly pour milk into butter-flour mixture while continuously stirring until mixture is smooth and bubbling, about 5 minutes. Add Cheddar cheese to milk mixture and stir until cheese is melted, 2 to 4 minutes.”

I found the recipe on my Mac
for noodles swathed in creamy Jack.
I bought the cheese. Grated it up,
dreaming of when I would sup.
I was tenacious with the grater.
Nobody holds a cheese block straighter!
And I was forthright in each thrust,
for tiny cheese curls are a must.

I mixed the flour in melted butter,
watched the whole mess spit and sputter.
Added pepper, salt and flour.
Stirred for what seemed like an hour.
Added the milk in rapid whirls,
and then poured in the cheesy curls.
Round and and round and round it went.
Turned down the stove, turned on the vent.

Boiled the noodles until tender.
Then, when it was time to render
cheese to noodles, asked my crony
just to drain the macaroni.
But, as he was headed back,
his arm collided with my Mac,
flipping it into the cheese
with such artistry and ease

that for a moment it looked to me
as part of the whole recipe.
But cheese on Mac of Apple kind
is not quite what I had in mind.
My Mac expired in smoke and sparking.
Dogs ran in with joyful barking
to lap up congealing cheese
from counter, stove front, floor and knees.

Cheese, computer, pan and noodle—
I tossed the whole kit and kaboodle
out the window into the grass
where dogs and cats and ants en masse
ate their fill until they popped,
while I wiped and scoured and mopped.
(I doubt that you could find my match
at scrubbing up a cheesy patch.)

But if you need a recipe
for Mac and Cheese, don’t count on me.
Though boiling noodles I learned by heart,
I fear I flunked the whole “Mac” part.


Prompt words were match, forthright, tenacious and noodle. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/07/rdp-tuesday-match/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/07/fowc-with-fandango-forthright/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/07/your-daily-word-prompt-tenacious-may-7-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/07/noodle/

Oddball

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Oddball

You don’t follow instructions. You will do as you may.
No matter what the plan, you always had another way.
No one could ever force you to form an even line.
You’d veer this way or that way and say that it was fine.
You waged a constant battle and staged a constant fight,
as though causing dissension was your main delight.
But it the end, it turns out that the others were the fools,
for they’ve labeled you a genius and are following your rules!

 

The words of the day are may, battle, force and delight. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/rdp-saturday-may/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/04/fowc-with-fandango-battle/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/your-daily-word-prompt-force-may-4-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/delight/