Category Archives: humorous poem

Entreaty: NaPoWriMo 2019, Apr 17

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Entreaty

I lie obscured behind a pot.
The pot is dry, but I am not.
Thanks to an active little doggy,
my usual state is chewed and soggy.
But, I should introduce y’all
to who I am—a small green ball.
And though I’m meant to just play tennis,
I fear I face a greater menace.

The antagonist of my sad story
is a Scottie dog named Morrie,
and though all humans find him cute,
his proclaimed merits I’ll refute.
If you’ll forgive a bit of kvetching,
I will explain—he’s fond of fetching.
Hour on hour, day after day,
he makes humans cast me away.

He  likes to fetch and chew and drool,
then toss me back into the pool
for whomever happens to be
taking a swim to rescue me
and throw me back down in the yard
so that hairy little card
can race back down to find where I
have been tossed down to and now lie.

I was once pristine—so green and soft—
perfectly planned for bounce and loft,
my lifetime planned and guaranteed
until she broke my seal and freed
me to what I was sure would be
the perfect gaming life for me.
But soon I was given pause
when I was seized between the jaws

of a leaping frenzied pup
who promptly tried to chew me up
and failing this, launched me into
the swimming pool’s warm watery blue.
I’ve lasted, now, three days or four.
It’s doubtful I can last for more.
For after days of constant chewing,
A ball’s not fit for sport or viewing.

Seams split and release air,
sink in the pool and languish there.
The only hope for my abiding
is if I can stay in hiding.
Please don’t reveal my little lair.
Help me preserve my seams and air.
For I will surely lose my bounce
if I’m exposed to one more pounce,

to one more bite or one more chew.
Please save my life. I’m begging you.
If you would simply pick me up
before I’m found by that damn pup,
and throw me over that far wall,
no one would know of it at all.
Perhaps some tennis buff would meet
me lying there upon the street.

He’d pick me up and take me where
I could be sailing through the air
racket to racket—kiss by kiss,
for surely I was made for this!!!
I’ve done my penance, served my time.
I’ve earned a life that’s more sublime.
So hear my plea and heed my call.
Bend down, pick up and throw the ball!!!

 

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a poem from an unusual point of view.

 

Check Mate

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Version 2

Check Mate

Some girls are bent on wedding any Tom or Dick or Harry,
but when it comes to choosing the man one wants to marry,
a lass should be selective­­––very circumspect and wary
lest she overlook what’s prime for his subsidiary.
A lesser man will drop the ball a better man will carry.
Is it best to know the difference? “Yes!” I insist, “Very!”
Choose a man who makes you hum, and once met, do not tarry.
Why settle for a mere canoe when you can take the ferry?

 

Prompts for today are ferry, subsidiary, prime and hum—or drop. (Ragtag’s prompt page and URLs sport two different words.) Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/16/rdp-tuesday-hum-2/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/16/fowc-with-fandango-prime/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/16/your-daily-word-prompt-subsidiary-april-16-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/16/ferry/

Since NaPoWriMo seems to have dropped all my links off all 16 of the poems I’ve done for them in the past sixteen days, I’m also going to include a link to that poem here in hopes a few people will see it: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2019/04/16/bucket-listless-napowrimo-2019-apr-16/

 

Bucket Listless: NaPoWriMo 2019, Apr 16

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Bucket Listless

Please don’t ever make me go back to Cancun.
If I never return there, I’ve visited too soon.
Don’t make me go to church again or listen to more rap.
Don’t make me go to bed at eight or take a daily nap.
I don’t want to do those things I don’t want to do.
Don’t make me look at animals trapped up in a zoo.

Brains are meant for keeping up farther in your head.
To have to eat the things I think with fills my mind with dread.
Don’t make me eat anything only adults eat:
liver, caviar, pate, kidneys or pigs’ feet.
All of those are parts of animals I’ve come to fear,
for none of them are meant to put in human mouths, my dear.

I think that I’ll live longer without jumping from above.
For bungee cords or parachutes I have no sort of love.
Even roller coasters present uncalled-for risk.
For me a walk upon the beach is adequately brisk.
Anything that’s bumpy, jerky, swooping, fast or twirly
makes me want to arrive late and go home really early.

Please don’t make me listen to those who rant and rave.
If I meet them in the street, I’ll merely nod and wave.
Let bores much given to monologues find another ear;
because those who never listen, I have no wish to hear.
Tea-partiers, loud mouths, bigots and folks in the elite
are on my list of strangers I do not need to meet.

I hope no radiation or chemotherapy
is ever necessary to make me cancer-free.
No machines to make me breathe and no dialysis.
As little poking, pushing, testing and analysis
as possible is what I wish for on my “do not” list.
Just let me go gently into that final mist.

I’ve grown to hate the overuse of “bucket list” as label
for what folks want to do before their death if they are able.
So please be more original in thinking what to call
that list of things that you most want to do before you fall.
For the thing that I don’t want as “I am” turns into “been”
Is to ever hear the phrase of “bucket list” again!

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt today is to write a poem using a list to defamiliarize the mundane. This poem fulfills part of that prescription.

New Girl

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New Girl

Her turnover in boyfriends is no subject for debate.
They stand outside her classroom door or by her locker wait.
An entire roster of males stands by, perchance to win a date.
There seems to be not one young man loathe to participate.
And though less pretty classmates tend to excoriate,
secretly, each schoolgirl longs to share her fate.

The world is full of femmes fatales: Naomi, Audrey, Kate.
By their very presence they seem to addlepate
every male within their sight, to stir and titillate.
Seemingly unknowingly, they dangle the right bait
that sets the most attractive men into a frenzied state.
It is as though they’re put on earth just to procreate!

There is no power on this earth to which I can equate
the power of these ladies to attract a mate.
If they knew the secret, they perhaps could educate
other women to allure so every man could sate
his passion for a lover at a faster rate,
so the world’s supply of spinsters could more rapidly abate!

 

 

The word prompts today are wait, turnover, participate and world. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/rdp-monday-wait/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/15/fowc-with-fandango-turnover/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/your-daily-word-prompt-participate-april-15-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/world/

Tweeting Kim Kardashian

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Tweeting Kim Kardashian

I recall that picture, but you’ve modified it some.
I fear it’s rather naughty to photoshop your bum!!!

Prompt words are recall, picture, modify and naughty. Here are the links:

https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/14/fowc-with-fandango-recall/
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/rdp-sunday-picture/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/your-daily-word-prompt-modify-april-14-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/naughty/

Lazy April

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Then she was so tuckered out that she decided to take a little rest in the hammock.

Lazy April

As the floating clouds of April leave their tracks across the sky,
they keep their rain inside of them. My flower beds are dry.
My characteristic lethargy I fear I’ll have to quell
by getting all the hoses out and turning on the well.
My watering can’s more portable, I could water by hand,
but I am so very lazy, and I fear I’d have to stand
for hours, shedding water everywhere I go.
Watering with a watering can, in short, is way too slow.
I’ll fire up the sprinklers, give the hoses all a jerk
and go back to my hammock and watch them do their work.

 

The prompts were April, track, characteristic and portable. Here are their links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/13/rdp-saturday-april/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/13/fowc-with-fandango-track/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/13/your-daily-word-prompt-characteristic-april-13-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/13/portable/

Excellent Investment Opportunity!!!

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Excellent Investment Opportunity!!!

My old cat will not eat her meals of chicken, meat or fishes.
Can after can, they’re offered, but they do not meet her wishes.
And although she’s demanding, calling for food at all hours,
only now and then do I provide food she devours.

I spend a fortune on her food, but still she oft refuses it.
She lowers her nose and sniffs the air, saunters over and peruses it,
gives two licks, then leaves the rest, meowing for some other
as later it is eaten by the dogs or by her brother.

“Fancy Feast” or “Kitty Cuisine”—whatever, she rejects it,
and if perchance she deigns to dine, afterwards she ejects it.
Since somehow at 18 years old, she’s nonetheless abiding,
perhaps they are hyperbole, these things that I’m confiding,

Still, she is particular and more so as she ages.
At 6 a.m. and noon and five and midnight, how she rages.
It makes no difference whether I am sleeping, sitting, standing.
“Now” and “Now” “NEEEEOW!!!!” she yowls, stubbornly demanding.

Lately, I have had a thought (It’s genius and no less)
of how to please her highness re: this culinary mess.
We need to have new flavors of cat food she might like—
rat or lizard, garter snake, hummingbird or shrike.

Why has no one thought of this? It makes such perfect sense.
Cats do not trawl for tuna or sit upon a fence
waiting for turkeys to trot by. They do not fish for trout.
They wait for passing chipmunks or for mice to run about.

I’m starting up a business canning food that she would eat.
She’ll gobble mouse fresh from the can and soon she’ll be replete.
If I can’t  find investors, I’m going it alone.
“Judy’s Pest Control and Disposal”––killing two birds with one stone.

 

Here, if you are interested, is the first stage of development of my innovational new cat food: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2019/04/14/cat-and-mouse/

And here is the final product: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2019/04/14/el-raton-cat-food-motivational-and-dispersal-system/

 

The Sesquipedalian’s Absolution

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The Sesquipedalian’s Absolution

When we use ostentatious words,  most folks are not forgiving,
so the perspicacious reader might have a slight misgiving
and greet such words with sideways looks—a sneer, a frown, a cough—
feeling I pontificate, just trying to show off.
Words like “moon” and “June” and “spoon,” ” flowers” and “zephyrus vapors”
are thought more suitable to poems and literary papers
than words like “perspicacious” which might have made you wary,
but—I, too, had to look it up in the dictionary!!!
If you must extract vengeance, please direct it to its source,
for I rely on daily prompts to help me plan my course.
Words like “and” and “but” and “the,” are words that I might cite,
but you can blame “Ragtag” and “FOWC” for words more erudite!

 

 

Words for the day are perspicacious, pontificate, flower and vengeance Here are the links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/10/rdp-wednesday-perspicacious/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/10/fowc-with-fandango-pontificate/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/10/your-daily-word-prompt-flower-april-10-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/10/vengence/

Retribution

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.

They’ve been building a monstrous three-story house across the street for months, the noise level increasing each day, but yesterday, my neighbor down below also started power-washing his house. They’ve continued today, and in addition, my neighbors on the other side have had gardeners operating unbelievably LOUD leaf blowers and chain saws.  It really is unbearable.  Only just now did all the men stop at once for their lunch break, enabling me to plan my revenge while writing today’s poem. Perfectly timed, just as I am typing this last line of my introduction, the power washers have started up again.

Retribution

Brain jarring poundings and drillings and sputterings
give rise to my angry cantankerous mutterings.
Construction on one side, leaf blowers over there.
High pressure power washers shatter the air.
From every direction, I’m besieged by noise.
It’s destroying my brainpower, shredding my poise.
No brilliant solution tops up my mind.
Sabotage is illegal and murder unkind.
I’ve turned up the music, closed windows and doors,
but still I can hear their mechanical roars
and grindings and crashes and rumblings and banging.
I contemplate suicide. Pills, gun or hanging?
Why aren’t my neighbors disturbed by the clamors
of chainsaws, cement mixers, trucks and jackhammers?
After all, it’s their property where men are working.
Yet none of my neighbors seem to be lurking.
They’ve probably all gone away for the day—
finding a quieter place they can stay.
They’ll return in the evening when noises decrease
hungry for dinner and a little peace—
and that’s when I’ll open each window and door,
turn my music amps up and even the score!!!!!

 

Prompt words today are hungry, cantankerous, brilliant and tops.Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/rdp-tuesday-hungry/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/09/fowc-with-fandango-cantankerous/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/your-daily-word-prompt-brilliant-april-9-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/tops/

The Year I Gave Up Childish Things: NaPoWriMo Day 9, Apr 9, 2019

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The Year I Gave Up Childish Things

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The Year I Gave Up Childish Things

At the age of sixty-eight,
I’ve no wish to equivocate.
Is there a time when childhood ends?
When we give up playful friends?
Cease to lie in grass and dream?
Drink our coffee without cream?
Always do what’s reasonable
in order to avoid life’s trouble?
Say no to candy and dessert?
Cease to giggle, joke and flirt?
If so, I can’t remember mine.
Perhaps when I am sixty-nine!

The NaPoWrMo prompt is to construct a poem of “things.”