Category Archives: humorous poem

Naughty Little Pleasures: NaPoWriMo, April 1, 2018

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jdb photo        

Naughty LIttle Pleasures

Naughty little pleasures, secret little games—
they are our private treasures, these solitary shames.
We never can admit them to family or friends,
for fear that doing so would  bring about their ends.
Childhood is when our private pleasure starts—
not stifling our sneezes or holding back our farts.
Eating the last cupcake or hiding Grandpa’s teeth.
Watching skirts on windy days to see what’s underneath.
Torturing sister’s Barbie Dolls and kidnapping her bears.
Reading Daddy’s magazines underneath the stairs.
Guzzling ice cream from the carton and milk right from the spout.
Opening sister’s love letters to see what they’re about.
Telling mom you’ll help her because she’s running late,
then licking all the cookies you’re putting on the plate.
If being perfect were more fun, then probably we would,
but there’s little pleasure in always being good.

For your listening pleasure, my friend Christine Anfossie added music to the poem and sent me a copy to share with you. Listen to it here: 

 

The NaPoWriMo prompt: write a poem that is based on a secret shame, or a secret pleasure.

Belly Talk

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Version 2

Belly Talk

Stomach, darling, first of all I’d like to tell you how indispensable you are.  Literally, you are irreplaceable in my life.  Aside from digesting my food, you separate my waist from my chest and keep my belts from straying.  You warn me about absolutely revolting subjects as well as food and are handy for nudging ahead in tight crowds.

That said, I need to bring up one large touchy matter.  For all the good you do in this world, do you need to be quite so large?  Lately, for instance, I’ve watched you extending your territory–venturing out into one plump donut extending around my back.  This makes looking at my rear view in the mirror extremely distressing.  “I never look at myself in back,” one friend told me years ago, but darling, that had been evident for years–testified to by the tight snarl of hair in the middle of her head.

But I digress.  You’re  awfully quiet.  I’m a bit worried that I might have offended.  But, the topic of magnitude of sound being brought up, I’ll continue.  Were you aware that you have taken to communicating with me at inopportune times?  A small growl after midnight to remind me of today’s brownies hiding in their microwave storage space safe from ants and marauding family members and friends?  That’s fine…and probably the real reason you were given a voice in the first place. But that long low rumble increasing in volume in the middle of the significant pause in the dialogue of the movie playing in a hushed movie theater?  Totally unacceptable. Other times your voice is uncalled for?  At the dentist’s office and in the throes of a long passionate kiss.  In teachers’ conferences and at ladies bridge afternoons.  No. No. No.  You are not invited in this capacity.  Yes, digest the margarita, the popcorn or the rich dessert.  Comment upon it? No.

That’s it, dear stomach.  I appreciate you. I know you are vital to my health and happiness.  You provide me with countless pleasures–those pleasures increasing with the years.  But, sweet middle of mine, if you could see your way clear to not increasing at a rate commensurate with my pleasures, I would appreciate it very much.  Oh.  Talking again, I see.  And probably not listening.  Oh well.  I hear your message loud and clear.  A pint of triple chocolate extra fudge gelato in the freezer?  Well, honey, this time you are speaking my language.  No one is around.  And it is totally acceptable!

Prose poem For NaPoWriMo’s Early Bird Prompt. Write a love letter to an inanimate object.

Confessions of a Line-Crasher.

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Confessions of a Line-Crasher 

Patience is not my forte. I put it on a shelf
and withdraw my impatience. It better suits myself.
I do not enjoy waiting for my turn in a store,
and bank lines make me want to barrel for the door.
I will not take a number when going out to dine.
I do not get my jollies from standing in a line.
Pharmacies and waiting rooms are simply not for me.
Let alone the airport queues when I’ve a need to pee.
If patience is a virtue, I fear I’ve flunked the test,
I think it is my birthright to go before the rest!!!

 

The prompt today was patience.

Dim Prospects

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Dim Prospects
(A Hyperbolic Modest Proposal)

We’re blotting the sun out and dimming the stars
with furnaces, factories, wildfires, cars.
With overproduction causing glut after glut,
it seems our improvements are anything but.
Man’s once-shiny future is now looking dim,
and he’s pulling the whole planet under with him.
Fires and hurricanes, tsunamis and quakes,
rampaging hillsides and drying-up lakes
are messages sent that the earth’s fighting back—
giving us warnings of things out of whack.

When fat cats in limos and thousand buck suits
have usurped all the seeds and kept all the fruits,
and all of their products are made by machines,
three dimensional copiers making our jeans,
our autos, appliances, organs and cars,
our TVs and glasses, our bikes and guitars,
we’ll all need welfare—mere motionless blobs
once they have “teched” away all of our jobs.
And since welfare is something that they’ve soundly booed,
what will the masses do for their food?

Where will we sleep once all of the money
all of the milk and all of the honey
is in the pockets of those gazillionaires
cushioned away in their billion-buck lairs?
Keeping a few of us here on the scene
to garden and cook for them, to serve and clean,
they’ll let unwashed masses starve in their cots
and buy from each other their trillion dollar yachts
And perhaps they’ll be happy with what they’ve created:
machines making products ’til their needs are sated.

Now that they’ve purchased our ship of state
and made it their own, it seems that the fate
of unlucky millions who’ve gone overboard
for lack of the medicine they can’t afford
is nothing to them, for not one of them cares
how any common citizen  fares.
Lest we riot against them out of our need
for money for food they’ve usurped in their greed,
issue guns to the populace. Let us dispense
of  these unneeded masses. To them, it makes sense!

The prompt word today is dim.

Market Day

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Market Day

This day, alas, has dawned so hot
I’ve no need to be where I’m not.
I want to spend it where I can
be exposed to ice and fan.
Though I’m in need of countless things:
foodstuffs, videos and rings,
a hairbrush, pens and other stuff,
I do not need them near enough
to venture out into this heat.
I’ll sit here in the catbird seat
at least until the sun goes down,
then venture out into the town.

The Forgottenman Challenge. Done!!

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After seeing my mixed bouquet in Cee’s daily flower challenge, Forgottenman challenged me to write a poem making use of the name of every flower in the bouquet.  Okay F-man, here it is. I rise to every challenge!!! (The names of the flowers in the bouquet are in bold print.)

Zinnia was the fairest maid the town had ever grown.
She flirted with the mill boy and claimed him as her own.
She rose and fed their baby with a silver spoon
each morning as her husband lay abed ’til noon.
To wake him up, she lay their child well within his reaches.
He woke to that sweet baby’s breath-—just redolent of peaches.
Brushing off her flour-dusted lover, Zinnia sent him on his way
to grind more grain for townsfolk who had the means to pay,
for although her dusty miller was not the working kind,
true love will not buy Gerbers nor diaper a behind.

Here is the bouquet again:

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Bouquet of zinnias, roses, baby’s breath, dusty miller, Gerber daisies.  jdb photo

Another response to Cee’s daily flower prompt.

No Longer in the Present

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jdbphoto

No Longer in the Present

Seated around the table in our favorite cafe,
attention to each other has come to be passé
We are not present here and now. We’re all in other places
as we stare at tiny screens, intent on other faces.

The friends we have around us will simply have to wait
for our interest in the world-at-large to finally abate.
The news that’s happening elsewhere is simply more amusing
than what might be happening in this space our body’s using.

Other friends are funnier in their “selfie” poses—
pooching out their lips at us and scrunching up their noses.
It won’t do to look natural, we have to look unique
in the selfsame pose that all selfie-flashers seek.

So if your friends are boring, not half so chic as you,
you always have the option to make a Tweet or two.
Check out the latest fashions available from China.
They’ll only take three months to reach you here in Carolina.

Check out the weather in Tibet and give YouTube a glance.
Companions won’t distract you if you don’t give them a chance.
Living one life at a time no longer has to do
so long as you remember to have your phone with you!

So if you’ve dropped a French fry and spilled ketchup down your dress,
you needn’t be embarrassed. It couldn’t matter less.
Intent on Twitter, Instagram, Facetiming and Facebooking,
the friends with you won’t notice, for nobody is looking.

The prompt word is present.

Mnemonic Phonics

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Mnemonic Phonics

Babies use clues amniotic
to deal with stimuli chaotic,
but later, memory gets thick.
In short,  it’s anything but quick.

Age slows us down and trims our wick,
fogs our recall,  slows our pick.
So I resort to many a trick
to give my mind a little kick.

This loss of memory’s demonic
and leads to fits most histrionic,
so I depend on clues mnemonic
for memory that’s supersonic:

(Can you guess what the below mnemonic devices help me to remember?)

Neither leisured foreigner
seized or forfeited the weird heights.

Every good boy does fine.
Good boys do fine always.

My very excellent mother just spewed up nine plums.

How about you?  What mnemonic devices do you use?

 

The prompt word is mnemonic.

Tending House

19 Replies

 

Diego supervises as Pasiano “tends.”  jdb photo

Tending House

In no place I have ever lived do so many people seem to be necessary to maintain one house. On any given day, in addition to my efforts, it is likely two or more of the following caretakers will be present: housekeeper, gardener, plumber, locksmith, bricklayer, tree-trimmer, cistern-cleaner, fumigator, carpenter or appliance-repairer. Do things really break more frequently in Mexico? Do locks jam more or garage openers go on the blink with greater regularity? Do more brick pathways need to be laid? More roof tiles slide down and go boom? More solar water heaters spring more leaks? Do pools develop cracks more easily and pipes pop open just for the fun of it? Do houses cry out to be added onto? In my sixteen years of living here, it certainly seems so. I especially remember the day described in THIS POEM as being one where the entire world seemed to be directed toward the care of my house. It was the monarch. We were its slaves.

The prompt today was tend.

I think this photo also qualifies for the Thursday Doors prompt!

The Persistent Suitor

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The Persistent Suitor

He has no right to loiter here, has no permit to tarry.
He looks no more familiar than  Tom or Dick or Harry.
And yet he is persistent, as though it’s his profession.
He gives no apology and renders no confession.

One day he carries chocolates, another a bouquet,
yet they do not grant him access. They do not pave the way.
Then one day he’s missing.  He doesn’t grace her door.
She hears no insistent knocking. There are no offerings more.

All day, she thinks of him and where he might have chosen to wander.
It seems perhaps that once again, absence has led to fonder
reflections on the part of one who’s playing hard-to-get.
(She is noted for her skill at it among the party set.)

One more day he’s absent. She claims she doesn’t care.
It’s easier to leave her house without a suitor there.
Yet when he finally comes again, she opens up her door
flushed with her power to attract. Victorious to the core!

“Yes?” she says, one eyebrow lifted in disdain,
as though another suitor is an aggravating pain.
And the confidence of her suitor seems never to have swerved.
As he handed her an envelope and said, “Ma’am, you’ve been served!”

 

 

The prompt today was permit.