Category Archives: humorous poem

Flip Flop (for DVerse Poets Pub)

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flip flop

the sound  of ease
and summer

not much to slip into
or out of

sand between toes
and other cracks

released in sleep
to gritty sheets

grinding our sleep
and clogging up washing machines

long gone the days of high button shoes
and the shoe horns that went with them.

Waist cinchers
give way to bikinis

and bikinis
to nude beaches

half of the world
flip flopping

rubber soles
and swinging breasts.

flip flops
taking the place

of gasps
as stays are tightened

the other half
burqas and Jimmy Choo

these differences
in freedom found

and freedom
found too slowly

find release in
collapsing towers

conceal, reveal.
flip flop.

 

For dVerse Poets Pub–on summer.

Some Little Bug Inside Me

28 Replies

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I am too sick to write a blog, I am a party hangout
for some amoeba who moved in and promptly called his gang out.
They’re having quite a time in there, yet keep wanting to leave.
Each time I have to see them out, I stumble and I weave.
My stomach feels like shattered glass, my head is slightly pounding.
I think they’re doing Zumba—flip-flopping and rebounding
against my corridors of gut. I wish that they would stop.
I can’t make it to the clinic to consult a microbe cop.
Is it a parasite or fluke ( contracted from my cat?)
When she strokes and kisses them, what cat owner thinks of that?
For now, I’m resting in my bed with electrolytes and Flagyl.
I’ve cancelled my appointments, for I’m feeling sort of fragile.
The world will demonstrate without me, and friends go out to dine
while I hang out with tiny guests, miserable and supine.

 

I had this same bug a year ago, when I had to call off my 70th birthday celebration, much-planned for, because I was so miserable. So, these pesky amoebas seem to be maintaining a schedule.  Unfortunately, I had a full day of activities planned today, as well—first of all a demonstration against Trump’s immigration policies, then a visit to my doctor, a visit to an ill friend, and dinner with another friend.  All cancelled.  Ironic that I’m too ill to go see my doctor.  Here’s another little ode to amoebas I wrote during an earlier bout named “Once Upon a Lime in Mexico.”

 

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/06/30/rdp-30-fluke/

 

Ragtag’s prompt today is fluke .

Eating Crow

9 Replies

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Eating Crow

There are a plethora of reasons why you didn’t win my heart.
It had been captured by another, who had it from the start.
But now I am reduced to this—knocking at your door.
I’m seeking some attention. Have you any more?

Love at first sight is a bomb. A victim of its blasting,
where once I was engorged with love, lately I’ve been fasting.
That love affair is over, and so I’m once more casting
to try to find a romance that I hope will be more lasting.

Your timing was just off before, but if you’d try again,
I’m reconsidering my Rolodex of rejected men.
I’m casting off my present, reconsidering where I’ve been
and right here on your card, I see I rated you a ten.

So if you’d like to give romance another little spin,
if you are still interested, if you have a yen
to set your sights on someplace where you’ve already been,
call 726-9483 and tell me where and when!!!

 

 

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/06/28/fowc-with-fandango-captured/
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/06/28/rdp-28-reduce/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/06/28/plethora/

Coping with the Rainy Season

7 Replies

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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

15 Replies

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

16 Replies

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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

7 Replies

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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.

8 Replies


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

2 Replies

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

4 Replies

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.