Category Archives: humorous poem

Confusing Near Homonyms

10 Replies


Confusing Near Homonyms

A meddlesome fellow is one who is bound
to mess in our business and boss us around,
while a mettlesome person is lively and gritty,
spirited, vigorous, gallant and witty.

They may be fine athletes, actors, or explorers,
but meddlesome people just tend to be borers.
Mettlesome’s interesting. Meddlesome? Deploring.
With one we’re enraptured. With the other, just snoring.

Why would a person who thinks up a word
Make opposites sound similar? It is absurd.
Mettlesome people turn out to be heroes.
They score a full ten to meddlesome’s zeroes.

Most mettlesome people please and amuse us,
but meddlesome people, by contrast, abuse us.
Considering this, our confusions suffuse us.
Was  the word mettlesome coined to confuse us?

 

mettlesome: full of vigor and stamina; lively, gritty, spirited, gallant
meddlesome: interfering, meddling, intrusive, prying, inquisitive, officious.

The prompt word today is mettlesome.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/06/rdp-wednesday-mettlesome/

Phonetics!!!

8 Replies

IMG_7450

Phonetics!!!

My neighbor wears her clothes too tight
which wins her dates most every night.
They do not mind her overbite
or that she’s not too erudite.

Her life just seems to hum along—
nothing too right, nothing too wrong.
And though her life is over-bitten,
No part of it is overwritten

except for the incessant drone
of her ubiquitous telephone.
As annoying as a megaphone,
it never ceases its loud drone.

The admiration of her crowd
of callers should not be allowed.
We wish they’d call less on the phone,
thus lessening its constant moan.

If just one suitor would ease our plight
and remain there overnight,
perhaps she’d take it off the hook.
We crave our peace by hook or crook!

A night without its incessant trilling
would, I must admit, be thrilling.
We do not have as many fears
for her morals as for our ears!

The prompt words today were hum, megaphone, overwrite and admire.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/rdp-tuesday-hum/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/02/05/fowc-with-fandango-megaphone/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/your-daily-word-prompt-overwrite-february-5-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/02/04/admire/

Southern Discomfort

20 Replies


Southern Discomfort

A barrage of dainty words like “Bless her heart!” and “Y’all.”
greeted me as I approached the entrance to the ball.
As I turned this and that way to fit me through the door,
it was then that I regretted the hoop skirt that I wore.
Finally giving it a yank and then one great yank more,
I fear I heard a ripping sound as something in there tore.

I grabbed a small mint julep from the tray that passed me by,
but waved away the country ham, eschewed the pecan pie,
for the merry widow that I was squeezed  into
already had me short of breath and slowly turning blue.
A few spins around the dance floor with something in my shoe,
convinced me that my southern ball experience was through.

We exited the ballroom, motored out of the plantation,
and in the backseat I surrendered to severe temptation.
Like those giant pythons that shed their skins in zoos,
I peeled off my merry widow and my ball gown and my shoes.
My hoop skirt parachuting out the window brought a smile
as I disposed of finery mile after mile.

As we drew up to the levee and approached the shrimping docks,
I drew on my old Levis and a t-shirt and my Crocs.
By then my southern gentlemen was through with me, I fear.
He was driving rather fast and grinding every gear.
So it won’t be any news to you that our romance was through.
“Southern” is just something that this northern girl can’t do.

 

 

Prompt words used in this post were news, dainty and barrage. Photo is stock footage from “Gone with the Wind.”

https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/30/fowc-with-fandango-news/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/30/your-daily-word-prompt-dainty-january-30-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/30/barrage/

Levels of Agility

7 Replies

Levels of Agility

As I crossed the meadow, I saw a large tree
that seemed to be perfect for climbing to me.
Its shade was inviting and seemed to create
a suitable topic for a debate.
Could I ascend its formidable trunk
and my lack of agility thereby debunk?
Or would I fall down with a tremendous clunk
and wind up in a heap in a terrible funk?

I’ve a poor sense of balance and that could create
a fall that could ruin my mobility rate.
I could fall on my head and get a sound crack
or break both my legs or my neck or my back
or get tangled in branches to such a degree
that they’d need a buzz saw to extricate me.
All in all, my decision finally made,
I spread out a blanket and lay in its shade.

Prompt words for today are balance, tree, inviting and create.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/29/rdp-tuesday-balance/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/29/fowc-with-fandango-tree/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/29/your-daily-word-prompt-inviting-january-29-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/29/create/

Intervention

6 Replies

Intervention

There is no need to instigate a further conversation.
I do not wish to carry on further investigation.
Your research notes are copious. You are immersed in piles of them.
Why must you accumulate miles and miles and miles of them?

Please, conquer your obsession. Let us get on with our lives.
Your number one obsession has me breaking out in hives!
I rue the day I prompted you to have a little look
at what I just considered an entertaining book.

I didn’t have a single clue–not an inkling that
you would quickly be obsessed with the Vampire Lestat!
A Discovery of Witches then joined your Zombie thing.
Every occult creature in graveyard or on wing

has seemed to colonize your mind, squeezing out all other
former occupations: football, hockey and your mother!!!
This is an intervention. I’m unplugging the TV,
seizing all your Anne Rice books. Replacing them with me.

Try to read me like a book. Look here into my eyes.
Vampires aren’t the only creatures who can mesmerize.
We’ll toss your zombies in a pile and stage a mass cremation.
Our sex life should improve a lot with their elimination.

I won’t need to bite your neck. My seductions won’t be gory.
They’ll be the furthest thing from an American Horror Story.
Things that go bump in the night need not all make you wary.
Let me raise your pulse rate by a means that is less scary!!!

Prompt words today are immerse, copious, extreme and instigate.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/rdp-wednesday-immerse/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/23/fowc-with-fandango-copious/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/your-daily-word-prompt-extreme-january-23-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/instigate/

Silver Platter

8 Replies

Silver Platter

I would not have your heart, my dear, on a silver platter,
for it does not seem to hold the things that really matter.
It only holds the riches to which greedy men aspire.
It does not hold the sentiments that stir us or inspire.
Humor and humility you lack in equal measure.
I fear that life with you would be lacking in the pleasure
that is the spice of living—that gives existence savor.
Life with you would just be rich, but sadly lacking flavor.
So keep your diamonds and your yacht and stow your silver platter.
I’d rather spend my time acquiring things that really matter!

For Daily Inkling’s prompt Silver Platter.

New Man at the Opera

4 Replies

img_1469 3

New Man at the Opera

With his head held at this angle, in the cape of a magician,
it’s true that he looks noble, but he’s merely a technician
in a laboratory where I fear they are uncouth—
where they dissect small animals and magnify the truth.
They then sell us the results at an inflated price.
Although he looks a gentleman, he isn’t very nice.

They say his former conquests are piled to the roof.
You’ll be his next small animal if you don’t stand aloof.
He distilled all their beauty into a fine elixir
that promises eternal youth. It is indeed a fixer
of wrinkles and of attitudes gained throughout a life
of the constant labor of motherhood and wife.

Thus goes all the gossip at the opera today
as the local ladies inspect, dissect and weigh
the assets and the defects of the newest man in town.
They titter and they bug their eyes. They giggle and they frown.
And by the end of the first act, they still don’t have a clue
about the way that they should act. What is it they should do

if they attract his interest? Should they snub or should they charm?
Each single lady fantasizes clinging to his arm.
The gossip after all may be a slight exaggeration
based loosely on the truth but still with no verification.
By interval, they’ve thought it through and make repeated passes
past the box he sits in, or view him through their glasses.

And early the next morning, they begin their primping—
their lipsticking and powdering, their combing, curling, crimping.
They line up on the sidewalk, waiting for their turn
to enter through his doorway to have their chance to learn
the truth about his mystery. In all, they numbered ten,
those maidens who there entered, and were never seen again!!!

 

 

The prompt words today are angle, noble, laboratory and magnify.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/22/rdp-tuesday-angle/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/22/fowc-with-fandango-noble/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/22/your-daily-word-prompt-laboratory-january-22-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/22/magnify/

Inevitable

2 Replies

Version 2

Inevitable

When I cough, I sputter, and when I sneeze, I spray.
My pet pastime is muttering. I’m trite in what I say—
these candid confessions representative of all
the ways that I’m imperfect—the reasons for my fall.

Once I was a prima-donna—unique in every way—
put up on a pedestal, protected from the fray.
But as I aged, old father time reduced me with his cleaver.
My mind grew vague and spotty. I fell victim to hay fever.

All the glories of the past vanished over time.
It made a simple mortal of what was once sublime.
So, fair warning to young lassies with your skin like peaches.
One day you, too, will fall into Father Time’s cruel reaches.

The prompt words today are pet, cough, representative and unique.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/20/rdp-sunday-dog/Pet
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/20/fowc-with-fandango-cough/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/20/your-daily-word-prompt-representative-january-20-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/20/unique/

Out of Order

7 Replies

IMG_3816

Out of Order

If you’re an avid planner—an agenda sort of man,
life seems to have a fondness for screwing up your plan.
Ideology is fine so long as you take note
that fate seems to have other schemes than life lived out by rote.

Providence is naughty. It thinks irony is divine.
It likes to move our decimal points, nudge columns out of line.
It screws around with calendars, plays jokes with weather, too.
It messes up your Windsor knot, conceals one favorite shoe.

It messes up collections and puts them out of sequence.
confuses medication in its timing and its frequence.
So if life changes the rules after you think you’ve won,
learn what it seeks to teach you: spontaneity is fun!

 

Prompt words today were collection, avid, ideology and plan.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/ragtag-daily-prompt-tuesday-collection/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/15/fowc-with-fandango-avid/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/your-daily-word-prompt-ideology-january-15-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/plan/

The Perfectionist

28 Replies

The Perfectionist

Change not a hair of thy fair head if it be for me.
I like you just as you are now from pate to chin to knee.
Your shins, though, are too shinny. Your ankles too well-turned.
Your heels? Shockingly callused. Consider yourself spurned.

For the dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge.