Category Archives: humorous poem

Coping with the Rainy Season

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Coping with the Rainy Season

No kudos to the darkness.
No kudos to the rain.
No kudos to departed sun
until it comes again.
Kudos to my blankets
and kudos to my pillows.
So long as rain drips steadily
from eaves troughs and from willows,
I may never stir again. Bring me tea in bed.
No eggs, but English muffins, buttered, in their stead.
I want to stay all snuggled ’til rain has gone away.
Follow these same instructions on every rainy day!

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/06/27/cope/
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/06/27/fowc-with-fandango-kudos/
The Ragtag prompt today is indulgence.

Late Check-Out

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Late Check-out

The camera battery left in its charger in a motel in St. Louis,
my batik sarong left gracing a hostel bed in Jakarta,
my only pair of shoes in Timor.
A pair of Levis in Singapore,
my diary in Tanjung Pinang,
my swimsuit in Sri Lanka.

I am lost all over the world,
and this is why, five minutes after
my sister has gone down to check out of the St. Paul hotel,
I am rechecking the beds and desk tops of our room.

My bag packed and zipped at the door,
my purse and computer case propped next to it,
I sift through soggy towels in the tub,
open the closet door once more
to rattle empty hangers,
check each plug socket on each wall.

 

“Check” is the Ragtag Daily Prompt today. This is a rewrite of a poem written three years ago.

Caught Short

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Caught Short

Caught short by the rainy season, I should have known better.
Though I’d left home high and dry, I knew I’d soon be wetter.
Defenseless  in the downpour, I ducked into a store.
Just to get some shelter,  I rushed in through that door.

I felt that I was lucky as this store was full of stuff,
though finding what I needed might be sort of tough.
The store clerk shuffled up to me, though he could barely stand—
an umbrella just as old as him held up in his hand.

Lucky when I chanced upon this ancient wrinkled fella,
he happened to be carrying a really big umbrella!
I opened up my pocket book and located a fiver.
Now I wouldn’t spend this day wet as a scuba diver!

But when I left that thrift store with my practical new find,
I found that I was actually in the same old bind.
For opening up my parasol, I uttered “What the heck?”
as rivulets of water ran down my head and neck.

The purchase I’d just made, I found, would be no help at all.
I hadn’t noticed that the shop was St. Vincent de Paul.*
The fault was no one else’s.  I know it was mine, solely.
I should have realized sooner that my purchase would be holy!

 

*St. Vincent de Paul is a secondhand store run by the Catholic Church.

 

The Daily Addictions prompt was Ancient. This poem was published under a different name four years ago.

Rainy Season Whine

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Rainy Season Whine

They can’t control the weather. The rain is its own boss.
So in the rainy season, we get our share of moss.
It wouldn’t be so bad if it would just grow where we choose,
but in the rainy season, it grows inside my shoes.

From June to September, we fall asleep to rain
and then in the morning, we wake up to it again.
Our clothing’s always soggy. Our clean cars do not last.
We can’t sit on the patio for a light repast.

We cannot play touch football with the wife and kids,
for when we do, our touchdowns wind up as muddy skids.
The dog does not get walked enough, so he’s a restless doggy,
and when we order pizza, the box is always soggy.

Pent up with our families, tempers sometimes flare.
Dad wigs out when the roof leaks, sis bemoans her frizzy hair.
Mom says that the fudge won’t set and brother is complaining
that the wifi doesn’t seem to work so well when it is raining.

We know the flowers need it, as does the reservoir.
Restrictions in water usage in the summer are a bore.
It’s true water’s a blessing. We are much in its debt,
but is there no way to get it without getting wet?

.

The FOWC challenge word today is control.

R.I.P.

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R.I.P.

They say he was a bastion of the community.
Of what their youth should aim for, the exact epitome.
Mothers named their kids for him and he was so discreet,
his name labelled a shopping center and a city street.

Asked to speak at graduation, his words were most succinct.
Not one old lady fell asleep. Nobody even blinked!
Moral, staunch and upright, he was everyone’s ideal.
He always used the crosswalk. He didn’t cuss or steal.

No forensic laboratory ever had a label
or test tube or fingerprint of his upon their table.
In short, his reputation was one without besmirch.
He went to each town meeting, every Sunday, went to church.

He did not exceed the speed limit, use liquor or smoke pot.
Every single vice on earth was something he was not.
His genes were the best of genes. His relatives all lasted
at least until one hundred, and he dieted and fasted.

Ate kale and probiotics, whole grains and leafy greens.
He sponsored many charities and lived within his means.
So when he died it wasn’t from alcohol or drugs.
He did not die from violence–his own or that of thugs.

He did not perish from obesity or accident or whoredom.
In the end, they say that he simply died of boredom!

For RDP prompt bastion.

and Daily Addiction’s prompt forensic

and Fandango’s is succinct.

Scuttle Rebuttal

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Scuttle Rebuttal

We scuttle between life’s different stages
like hamsters on wheels or rats running mazes.
In childhood, we cannot wait to grow up.
We wear our pants low and mutter, “Whuzzup?”
We think when we’re teenagers, we’ll really live
as childhood passes like sand through a sieve.
As teens, all our reckoning’s fixed on afar–—
that day when we’ll finally drive our dad’s car!
Then university becomes our goal,
or life in the factory or life on the dole
if school seems a prison and we want to skip
one of the stages so we can just zip
to earning a dollar and running our lives,
buzzing right through it like bees in their hives.
Milling and rushing—careening through life.
Barely a girlfriend before we’re a wife.
Driving kids one two three from this lesson to that
until we can’t reflect where exactly we’re at.
Grandpas and grandmas, then single once more.
Losing a spouse may just open a door
to a last  phase and the end of this rhyme.
A phase where, finally, we’ll take the time
to just sit and enjoy the stage that we’re in,
now that we’re retired and resting’s no sin.
Invest in a porch swing, a hammock or cat
that gives you a reason to be where you’re at
without moving or thinking of something to do.
Just sit yourself down. Scratch the cat. Eye the view.
Life’s more than a puzzle and more than a queue.
Take time to enjoy this life that you grew!!!

 

The Daily Addictions prompt today is scuttle.

Failed Honeymoon

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Failed Honeymoon

Alas, the groom’s romanticism
failed to thrive on criticism
that paired with much pedanticism,
soon led to a marital schism.
Oh, that the bride had been less callous
in revealing all her malice.
If she had been less vitriolic
and more open to honeymoon frolic,
he might have been less alcoholic.

 

The Daily Addictions prompt word today is vitriolic.

Travel Advisory for Marital Bliss

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Click on any photo to enlarge all.

For dVerse Poets today, we were to compose a poem making use of the following street names:
Rope Walk, Potacre Street, Silver Street, Catshole Lane, Buttgarden Stree, Gas Lane, Coral Avenue, Dragon Hill, Baron Way, Mutton Lane. Well, I used them all, but don’t blame me for the zaniness of the following:


Travel Advisory for Marital Bliss

When I’m asked to walk the rope,
I am most likely to say, “Nope!”
But(t) Garden Street sounds more ornate.
I might pass through its flowery gate.
I won’t be Dragon up the Hill.
Don’t do inclines, and never will.
Silver and Coral? My confession
is that they suit my old profession
as a silversmith and vendor,
so if you are a generous spender,
I’ll go on a buying spree
and sell the results, then, to thee.

Don’t go for mutton. It ends in gas,
so on those two, I’ll have to pass.
There’s a barrier on Baron Way.
I can’t go there, for no one may.
Acres of potholes also mar
Potacre Street and so my car
must avoid both Catshole and it
lest we wind up in a pit,
damaging our undercarriage
and my stability of marriage.

Are we going there? The wife says no,
for she decides where we will go.
So, much as I would like to wander
up all those streets up over yonder,
dVerse Poets are not my boss,
so this adventure will be my loss.
And though I will not ace your test,
all-in-all, I think it’s best
to limit where I’m going to roam
and simply take the fast route home.

For dVerse Poets Pub prompt.

After the Ceremony

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After marriage, even after the mundane invades our life, hopefully, some of the magic remains.

After the Ceremony

Oh my dear,
caught in this star-studded cowboy boot world,
I love you more than an Oreo cookie,
more than bubble gum
or a dill pickle.
You are a full gas tank and my shoelaces.
You are both what keeps me going
and what I am reaching out for—
my goal and trophy rolled into one.
You are my ironing board and my blender—
what churns me up and straightens me out.
Everything in the world is caught up in you.

It is flowering, our ordinary world.
Zephyrus peanut butter
and turgid corned beef hash
are surrounded by rosebuds,
soaring heavenward in sartorial bliss.
The sewing machine is holy
and our Dodge truck dreamlike.
The fanciful and practical
are shuffled in our dream world
like cards at a poker table.
A washcloth and a comb soar heavenward.
Birdsong becomes a phonograph needle,
caught in its groove.
Verdant is the garden hose–
pulsating with a new vibrancy.

If I am a tax form, you are my pencil.
I am diaphanous in my kitchen apron,
a fairy in blue jeans.
I could sing an ode to your toothbrush.
If I took a measuring stick to our love,
the world’s breath would be bated,
waiting for the result.
Birdsong would issue from the teakettle
to chorus the announcement.
For oh, my love, our passion is a hammer.
A scythe that slices through the problems of the world:
the shopping lists and the crabgrass.

Love vaporizes our petty problems––
the broken dishwasher
and the broken fingernail––
I am thy bride, thy fairy princess.
Your pencil sharpener.
The trimmer of your wick,
the cooker of your sausage.

My dear, I am turgid in thy love.
You are what wrenches my heart
and nails shut the door
of every misgiving I might have had.
You are mustard to my sauerkraut,
pastrami to my rye.
Love in a Ziplock bag might seem less fairylike,
blander than white bread
and more Sunday School than magical;
but, you are my big zucchini,
my Dove bar and my Orange Crush,
and I am forever thy camellia and thy rose.

Remember me under lindens,
my footsteps filled with magnolia petals
and my cook pot full of stardust.
Heaven resides in our walkup flat, my dear,
and I pulsate every day
with the memory of that honeymoon
which was only our penultimate dream—
leading up to the chock-a-block,
stuffed turkey with all the trimmings,
overflowing Christmas stocking,
burst balloon filled with confetti,
blissful rest of that conjoined life
that with every morning alarm clock
will spill over us again
like a freshly split piñata.

This is a rewrite of a poem first written five years ago. The prompt word today was ceremony.

Doppelganger Disclaimer

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“Double Identity” Retablo by Judy Dykstra-Brown. Click on any photo to enlarge all.

Doppelganger Disclaimer

I do not have a doppelganger. There’s no evil twin
wandering around within the world I’m in.
So any malfeasance—any scrape or sin
that has occurred in any place where I might have been
please attribute just to me. I will take all the blame.
Blaming a doppelganger would be to share my fame.
Sometimes I am a stinker, but at other times most jolly.
I’m responsible for all of me—both bravery and folly.
As a denizen of this fair world, until I pull up stakes,
I think it’s only fair that I claim my own mistakes!

 

The prompt word today is doppelganger.