Category Archives: humorous poem

Odd Couple

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Odd Couple

She had a nature most erratic
whereas his was mainly static.
She was a girl who liked to rock.
All day he sat and watched the clock.
Few pleasures did he ever find
in his life work’s daily grind.

When they first met, I must confess,
he questioned how she chose to dress.
High heels with socks were not the way
that ladies dressed back in his day.
She was eighteen and he was forty.
She dressed funky. He dressed sporty.

He liked golf. She loved the clubs.
She chewed her fingernails to stubs
worrying about the planet’s fate.
She slept around. He didn’t date
and worried not about emissions
nor those Save the Earth commissions.

What soul who knew them both would guess
they’d ever meet, or even less
imagine that they’d get along—
he with his pipe, her with her bong?
Let’s put them in each other’s way.
See how they’d act. See what they’d say.

She meanders through the park
in the evening, before dark.
He’s walking home from the ninth hole.
She rounds the corner, he crests the knoll.
They meet soon on the walkway path.
They have to pass. You do the math!

She eyes his clubs. He eyes her socks.
Her expression questions, but his mocks.
He doesn’t nod, she doesn’t greet.
If you were wishing they might meet,
you’ll have to write your own romance.
These two as lovers? There’s no chance!!!

 

Prompt words today were rock and guess. Here are links:

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/24/rdp-sunday-rock/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/24/guess/

Stuffed

24 Replies

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Stuffed

I lose my glasses, cuss and mutter,
but my worst quality is clutter!
I have a drawer just filled with socks
I never wear.  And pans and woks,
old dishes, fondue pots  and skewers,
a fourteen-year-old bottle of Dewars
not one friend drinks, much less myself,
sitting there upon my shelf.
Everything I buy just clings.
I  can’t seem to part with things!
In boxes on my garage shelves
are all my former castoff selves.

The slides from art shows long ago?
I dreaded sorting them and so
they remain in plastic crates,
labeled with their types and dates.
Old letters, class notes, tax returns?
I’ve heard that paper easily burns
as well as shreds, yet still I wait.
Years pass as I equivocate.
They might be needed someday so,
get rid of them? I must say no!
With finite space in drawer and bin,
I buy new things and stuff them in.

I should destroy, but can’t commit,
those mismatched pan lids that don’t fit,
My studio is filled with things.
My jewelry drawers with bracelets, rings.
My closets stuffed with different sizes,
shelves stacked with future gifts and prizes.
Snow boots although it never snows
anywhere this woman goes.
A safari hat with veil
hangs upon a closet nail
along with wet suit, snorkel, fins,
and other useless hoarding sins.

My kitchen is a spice museum.
So many spices, I can’t see um.
Fenugreek and capsicum
that I was given by my mum
so long ago they have no taste,
green olives and tomato paste
well past the date they should be used.
Yes, my house should be perused
and sorted out, I must admit,
instead, I sit and write of it!
I know some folks clear out their closets,
but me? I only make deposits!

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Prompt words today were security, finite, someday and commit. I admit, I took a poem from four years ago and added lines to include some of the new prompt words.  Still can’t throw anything away but at least I’m repurposing!

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/22/rdp-friday-security/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/22/fowc-with-fandango-finite/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/22/your-daily-word-prompt-Someday-february-22-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/22/commit/

Evolution

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See how tiny he is? He’s in the corner two bars over from the right.

Click on first photo to enlarge photos and see as series.

Evolution

If we took every advertisement
that we saw under advisement,
envisioning ourselves in cars
filled with TVs and guitars,
food choppers and Barbie dolls—
everything we saw in malls—
we might buy it all and after,
fill every house to every rafter.

Blenders, stereos and blouses
would pile up in our many houses.
Consumerism would be the key
to  how happy we would be.
Lethargic children would sit about
staring at phones in hands, not out
into the world their windows face.
Imagination would replace
a reality no one could cotton.
Our old world would be so rotten—
all it was so ill-begotten
that it had to be forgotten.

Our present world now so diluted
(nature being so polluted)
that the animals our kids would see
would not be out and roaming free
but in some zoo with air protected
and no fluorocarbons detected.
All these things that we could buy
would be what caused our world to die.
Plastic world and plastic lives
would seal us into plastic hives
where we could buzz around in cells
creating our own private hells.

How hard would it really be
to imagine this reality?
How close are we to it already—
Our brains scrambled into spaghetti
by barrages of consumerism?
Could we even heal the schism
that our plastic world has wrought?
Would we give up all we’ve got
for the greener simpler earth
of our great-grandfather’s birth?

Man will speed on toward his doom
in his air-conditioned room
that screens the poisons out while he
sits rapt in front of his tv.
His children, who can no longer stand,
sit, each with eyes glued to his hand.
Only robots will go out
to shop for us and walk about
in air that’s suited only for
machines to venture out the door.

They’ll greet each other in the street,
smiling at each bot they meet.
Perhaps the plastic revolution
was the next step in evolution.
They’ve locked us all within their lairs.
The world they sought is finally theirs
as every human sits and stares
at the unreal world he shares
with every other other fleshly being
that gave up doing for simply seeing.

The prompt words today were key, lethargic, advertisement and envision.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/rdp-monday-key/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/18/fowc-with-fandango-lethargic/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/your-daily-word-prompt-advertisement-february-18-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/envision/

Toilet Paper Blues (and Greens and Yellows)

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Toilet Paper Blues (and Greens and Yellows)

Once paper for the toilet came in every hue—
green or blue or yellow to wipe away our poo.
And though we all liked paper that was soft and squeezable,
most people felt that color wasn’t very feasible.

Hue was always optional, for you could still find white,
which had the best capacity for capturing the light.
Of all the other choices, white was still the best
to help you find the toilet on your midnight quest.

Now in the tissue aisle, no color meets our sight.
Green and blue and yellow seem to have taken flight.
We use our toilet paper for what it’s created for
without the added problem of matching our decor.

My poem isn’t delicate, it mentions words like poo.
I hope this does not put off such proper folks as you.
You will perhaps forgive me for my word choice this one time,
for feces’s not poetic and caca doesn’t rhyme!

Prompt words for the day are color, optional, squeezable and quest.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/17/rdp-sunday-color/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/17/fowc-with-fandango-optional/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/17/your-daily-word-prompt-squeezable-february-17-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/17/quest/

One Rhyme Friday: Rude Awakening

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Rude Awakening

I must say that I don’t believe and in fact, I eschew
your variety of reasons for doing what you do:
cutting right in near the front of a lengthy queue,
breaking into conversations never meant for you
or gobbling down two cookies when there are just a few.
All of these rude actions are things that make me rue
the day that you arrived in town and first came into view.
You shuffled ‘cross the dance floor, doing the old soft shoe,
asked if you could have a dance and then commenced to woo.
Oh, if only that was something that I could undo!
I’m tired of your rudeness that you seem to do on cue
whenever there is someone interesting or new
that I’d like to get to know. You just don’t have a clue.
But stuff this in your big mouth, please, and then begin to chew.
You be the ass. You be the monkey. Be the kangaroo.
I no longer want to be the trainer in your little zoo!

 

Want to try doing a poem that makes use of only one rhyme?  Write one and send me a link to it in my comments.

 

https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/15/fowc-with-fandango-variety/

Venetian Dreams

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Venetian Dreams

The year we did the Grand Canal,
I came home feeling humble.
My own life just seemed so banal.
My dreams began to crumble.

My life was filled with piety
of very little note.
None of the notoriety
could my First Baptist quote

compared to all the beauty
I’d seen in St. Mark Square.
I felt it was my duty
to be living over there.

I needed no incitement.
My life here seemed so rote.
I needed the excitement
of traveling by boat.

Though it seemed an overindulgence,
I sought to be alone.
I needed the effulgence
of sun shining on old stone.

I could sell my small red Honda,
put my jewelry in hock.
(I had visions of a gondola
waiting at the dock.)

I imagined a “For Sale” sign
in front of my small home.
It seemed a “Get out of Jail” sign.
This housewife sought to roam.

If it sold within two fortnights
I could take off, traveling solo.
I could trade in Sunday sportnights
for a flight to Marco Polo!

I would feel I was at home again.
I’d missed the sights of Venice.
I wanted to be where I’d been,
free from all the menace

of getting three kids off to school
and ironing hubby’s shirts.
I sought to trade the Golden Rule
for romantic nights and flirts.

I’d give up school bake sales
for pannetone and gelato
eaten with Italian males.
“Me First” would be my motto.

I tried to conjure the Rialto,
but I saw the Bridge of Sighs
as my sound track’s rich contralto
assumed a different guise.

“Mommy, Mommy! was the chorus
of my shattered dream.
My stone fantasies were porous,
issuing a frantic stream

of nightmare shrieks and pleadings.
I started down the hall.
My daughter’s midnight needings
my most urgent call.

The canals were left in shambles
as verity flooded in.
So much for fantasy gambles.
My real life won again!

The prompt word today are canal, overindulgence and humble.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/15/rdp-friday-canal/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/15/your-daily-word-prompt-overindulgence-february-15-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/15/humble/

Valentine Grafitti: 3 Line Tales 159, Feb 14, 2019

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Wallfollower

I’ll hang my hopes on that heart
you scribbled on my heart, graffiti lover.
Pleased to be your canvas.

For Three Line Tales 159

The Perils of Memory Lane

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The Perils of Memory Lane

I’m taking a vacation with my mother and my aunts.
On their sentimental journey, we’ll visit their old haunts.
I’m afraid I have my worries, but I’m hoping all goes well,
and I’m trying my hardest my anxieties to quell.
Our travel plans will take us from the east coast to the plain
of wild South Dakota, and then back home again.

We’re going in September to see the lovely sight
of brilliant autumn colors falling from great height.
Then their favorite Japanese garden will include a bonsai florist
and an attraction of their youth: the Badlands Petrified Forest.
First will be Connecticut to see the falling leaves.
They’ll rain down on our bodies: shoulders, faces, sleeves.

The tiny bonsai gardens will not pose a threat.
When leaflets fall upon my feet, I will not fuss or fret.
Of these stops on our journey, I am not scared at all,
but I worry what will happen this year in the fall
when we tour the petrified forest. Will its trees begin to shed
leaves turned to stones and pebbles that will fall upon my head?

The prompt words today are leaflet, petrified, sentiment and hope.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/rdp-tuesday-leaflet/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/12/fowc-with-fandango-petrified/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/your-daily-word-prompt-sentiment-february-12-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/hope/

Love Spell

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Definition of spell: 

—a state of enchantment
—a strong compelling influence or attraction
—an indeterminate period of time waited
—a continuous period of time (did a spell in prison)
—a period of bodily or mental distress or disorder
(spell of coughing, fainting spells)

Love Spell

As with so many, their flirtation
started over a libation.
Tequila conquered hesitation
and augmented jubilation
Minutes later, infatuation
 roused their hearts to palpitation.

Palpitation turned into lust,
a string of cans pulled through the dust,
a sign: Niagara Falls or bust!!!
Their honeymoon’s great joy and thrust
made every day a celebration
with not one hint of love’s cessation.

A single simple act of treason
ended up being the reason
why true love’s flare and excitation
turned into a conflagration
that started as an agitation
and ended up as litigation.

The judge soon granted the decree
that set the bonded lovers free
with a newfound realization
that a certain titillation
brought about by alcohol
could be the rise before the fall.

The prompts today are flare, reason, infatuation and trust.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/11/rdp-monday-flare/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/11/fowc-with-fandango-reason/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/11/your-daily-word-prompt-infatuation-february-11-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/11/trust/

Wordsmith

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Wordsmith

He manufactures, word by word,
sentences that are absurd.
Each construct is a little joke—
an irony or  equivoque.

If you wish, I’ll let you know
when he’s ready to stage a show.
I guarantee, his recitation
is sure to win your approbation.

Making each word serve as two
is something that he’s driven to do.
Each double-entendre an education
in the art of revelation:

one meaning clear to any child,
the other more obscure and wild.
Thus does a punster get his fix
by stirring up a wicked mix:

a word cocktail whose piquancy,
cleverness and frequency
in any form or any guise
promises a rare surprise.

So come with me and in two winks
my friend will tell you what he thinks—
his discourse rare and smart and funny,
acerbic and right on the money!!!


Today’s prompt words are manufacture, construct, revelation and equivoque (an expression capable of having more than one meaning; a pun.) Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/07/rdp-thursday-manufacture/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/07/fowc-with-fandango-construct/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/07/your-daily-word-prompt-equivoque-february-7-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/07/revelation/