Category Archives: humorous poetry

Little Savages

9 Replies

Little Savages

Hungry little savages attack the bedroom rug,
assaulting the tassels as they sortie for a bug.
They pounce upon the jingling ball, climb the sliding screen,
finding potential nourishment in everything they’ve seen.
They fall upon the kitten food and empty out their dishes,
inspecting corners of their bowls–stray morsels now their wishes.
Tidily lick my fingers, tongues curling from their lips,
mining me for fish oil caught in whorls of fingertips.

They can find adventure in anything you’d name—
pursuing errant crickets is like stalking wild game.
Every moving thing around is something to be followed—
to be toyed with, then when humans enter, quickly swallowed.
Frisky little savages win every hunting game.
They pounce upon their victim—live or plastic is the same.
They stalk their largest quarry as though they have a map—
track it down and take a leap and curl up in my lap!

(Click on first photo to enlarge all.)

Ollie..runt of the litter.

The prompt word today was savage.

Unsolitary Confinement

5 Replies

img_7363.jpg

Unsolitary Confinement

When I’m walking down the street, my bracelets jingle jangle,
executing dialogues—bangle against bangle.
Calling up to earrings that answer as they dangle,
warning errant necklaces not to twist and strangle.
Every little moving piece—every single spangle
creates a  cacophony that’s more than I can wrangle.
Just a little peace and quiet’s all I hope to wangle
as, thrown into my jewelry box, they’re silenced by the tangle.
They’re driven by their fear that their proximity will mangle
if they even try to move to aim for a new angle.

 

 

The prompt today is jangle.

Cringeworthy

2 Replies

IMG_6502

Cringeworthy

A dripping tap, a creaking hinge,
the very sight of a syringe,
running short while on a binge,
well-meaning friends whose words infringe
upon my punch line, or just a tinge
of sarcasm in a response can make me cringe.
But none of these can quite unhinge
me half as much as when I singe
or cut too short my forehead fringe!

 

 If I ever ignite my hair on fire over a birthday cake or let them
cut my fringe this short again, just shoot me!

The prompt today was cringe.

Paper Shoes

5 Replies

Paper Shoes

I’m folding me some paper shoes
so I can walk away the blues.
The love poems I cannot recall
I’ll scuff off as I pass the mall.
Someone will find my words all shredded—
how you wooed and won and bedded
one so young and so naive
that she could not help but believe
words pilfered from a Hallmark store
that you had often used before.

All those lovelorn lines obscured.
All that loneliness endured.
On Main Street I will shed my heart—
that part of me you tore apart.
All the lines I wrote about it,
all the times I grew to doubt it.
Your words the heel, my words the sole,
the sidewalks will consume them whole.

All the futile poetry
that passed once between you and me
ground into the pavement where
perhaps two lovers will find it there—
the words like seeds that hung around
hoping for more fertile ground.
Love sprouted from a used-up word
might strike some others as absurd,

But I like to think perhaps
our use of them was just a lapse.
Repeated by those other voices
who choose to live by other choices,
all those words that we now rue
might work for lovers who are new.

The prompt word today is paper. (Image from internet, photographer unknown.)

Sinning Lessons

9 Replies

DSC09591 (1)

Sinning Lessons

I am a paragon of virtue. I have no other choice.
I do not have a figure.  I have no sultry voice.
I’ve no talent at kissing. The boys leave me alone.
I have no lovers calling me nightly on the phone.

I get my thrills from scripture. I embroider and I tat.
The creature that I cuddle with is an old grey cat.
Sometimes virtue’s chosen, but it isn’t so with me.
I’d rather spend my weekend nights on some feller’s knee.

But it isn’t in the cards. It’s just my Ma and me.
I guess I’ll just be buttoned up instead of brash and free.
My ma found a new hired man. He isn’t very tall.
A moustache but no muscles. Not swashbuckling at all.

But he has a good strong back. He carries water for me.
And for reasons I can’t fathom, he seems to adore me.
It’s one morning in the cow barn, milking Bossie, that I miss
the bucket with the milk stream when the hired man plants a kiss

on my neck as I bend over. It makes that old cat’s day.
He opens up his mouth and drinks as I just dream and sway
then turn to open my mouth, too, and see how kisses feel
when they are given mouth-to-mouth. It makes me almost reel.

But Hank the hired man catches me, sets me straight again,
and that’s the starting of my life as a paragon of sin!
Sinning’s not so bad at all. You can’t believe the preacher.
And it’s not so hard to do when you have a teacher.

Lessons started in the milking barn but ended in the loft.
The hired man got handsomer as he took his clothing off.
I think he liked me better, too, when I was in the buff 
for no matter how much more I showed, it never seemed enough.

We had a lovely time up there, the hired man and me.
As testament, now seven kids cluster round my knee.
The hired man’s beside me. As I sit and hold his hand,
he runs his fingers back and forth across my wedding band.

The old gray cat’s still happy, for sometimes he still gets lucky
when I’m distracted in the milking ’cause my husband’s feeling plucky.
Married life is lovely. We’re happy, him and me.
We are paragons of loving for perpetuity. 

 

The prompt today is “paragon.”

Big Spender

9 Replies

Big Spender

If a kiss were legal tender
I know those of either gender
who in the midst of a big bender
would be labeled a big spender.
And though they’re comely, fit and slender,
and may have many a staunch defender,
if I’m looking for a lender,
I’d prefer a less-used vendor.

 

The prompt today is “tender.”

Richly Ragged

6 Replies

Richly Ragged

Youth today want to abolish
all the elegance and polish
that has received such veneration
from their parents’ generation.
Jeans with rips and shirts with holes
seem to be their fashion goals.
What is ironic is the tags.
They spend a fortune for these rags!

 

The prompt today is polish. Image taken from the internet.

Outspoken

10 Replies

Outspoken

When you tell your truths en masse,
what you may choose to see as brass
others might perceive as crass.
You may think you’re just a truthful lassie,
but what to you is cute and sassy,
the rest of us consider gassy!
Sometimes, just let the impulse pass.
You’ll be less of a horse’s ass!

 

 

The prompt word today was “brassy.”

The Reveal

11 Replies

PA260046
The Reveal

Even when she’s in the buff,
he feels she’s not revealed enough.
He wants to know her heart and soul—
to know her entire being, his goal.
But, alas, she cannot do it.
If she does, she knows she’ll rue it.
Much as she loves a certain sir,
there is a certain part of her
that must remain a mystery.
For in this maiden’s history
are other suitors it behooved
to have her secrets all removed.
But when she revealed it all,
one by one, they did not call.
And thus she learned a maiden’s rule:
Men are fickle. Men are cruel.
Lest you be put up on a shelf,
keep parts of you safe in your self.
To keep him interested in your stuff,
Most of you is just enough.

 

 

 

The prompt today was “buff.”

Parsing Warshington

2 Replies

Translation: “Donald, we are watching you!”  jdb photo, solidarity march, La Manzanilla, MX


Parsing Warshington

Politics became a farce
the year that voting brains were sparse
and we elected that damn narc-
issistic, cretinous horse’s arse!!
It’s clear we couldn’t have chosen warse!!!!

The prompt today was “farce.”