Category Archives: humorous poetry

A Certain (Lack of) Understanding

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Sign Language

I know our birth tongues aren’t the same,
but still I think words aren’t to blame.
It is your means of understanding
that convinces me you’re underhanding.
For every time I give you kisses,
it seems you go to other misses
in search of the translation tips
they give by laying on of lips.
My dear, if we were dumb and blind
then translation service of this kind
might make some sense, but I must say
your excuses will not work  today.
Please have your translator of prose
stick this finger message up your nose!!!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/understanding/

Blueberry, Blueberry, Blackbird Pie: NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 26

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Blueberry, Blueberry, Blackbird Pie

Gotta get a cookie. Gotta eat some pie.
Gotta have some sugar, do or die.
Grab a fork and grab a spoon.
Sugar shack opening pretty soon.

Hey lolly hey lolly, blueberry pie.
Hope to have some by and by.

Old Mother Crank put a pie up on the shelf.
Thought she’d eat it all herself.
Along came a blackbird who grabbed a bit of crust,
then the whole damn pie as the old lady cussed.

Hey lolly, hey lolly, no more pie.
Blackbird made it go bye bye.

Old Mother Fussbudget loaded up her gun.
She didn’t have pie, but she was gonna have some fun.
When she spied that blackbird way up high,
she fired her gun up in the sky.

Hey lolly, hey lolly, no berry pie.
Just that blackbird winging through the sky.

Now old Mother Wigglewaggy baked another pie.
It’ll be ready in the blinking of an eye.
She had two pieces, then she had a third,
Since she didn’t have fruit, she used the bird!!

Hey lolly, hey lolly, no bird pie.
I prefer my blackbird served on rye!

Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a call and response poem.

http://www.napowrimo.net/

Last Little Piggy Goes to Market: NaPoWriMo 2016, Day 21

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Last Little Piggy Goes To Market

I am the littlest piggy, and when I commenced to roam,
why did I cry “Wee wee wee” all the long way home?
My sibling went to market and I followed along.
The path was rough and winding–as steep as it was long.

My little legs were tired, yet I followed close behind––
I wondered if he knew that I was following if he’d mind.
My family never let me go hardly anywhere,
so market piqued my interest. I wondered what was there.

I asked my other siblings if they wouldn’t like to try it,
but one was into his roast beef, the other on a diet.
She said she would be tempted by the pastries and the candy.
This was enough to convince me this market was a dandy.

When we crested the final hill and rounded the last bend,
the market spread out for so far, I couldn’t see its end.
Booth after booth was set up to sell its chosen fare.
My head swung fast from side to side to see all that was there.

Buttons, bolsters, bumbershoots and books with songs or riddles.
Little dainty donuts with whipped cream in their middles.
Tinkertoys and rubber balls and cricket bats and kites.
My eyes could not keep up with all these delicious sights.

I lost sight of my brother, but I didn’t care.
I was too busy ogling all this varied fare.
My tummy started rumbling. Ice cream, cakes and pies.
I wished that I could put my mouth where I had put my eyes.

But then I stopped to look at a very curious rig
and a big sign that said “Barbecue—what? Barbecue pig????
Folks stood around with sandwiches filled with dripping meat,
and then I saw another sign that said “Pickled Pig’s Feet!!!”

My pigs’ feet took me out of there as fast as I could joggle.
I didn’t stop for donuts. I didn’t stop to ogle.
I scurried for my own safe yard, squealing “Wee, wee, wee!”
Now when I seek adventure, home is enough for me!!!

 

The Prompt: write a poem in the voice of minor character from a fairy tale or myth.
http://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-one/

 

“The Gawkey and Flaybottomist—Who Should Have Stopped When First They Kissed”

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The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to write a poem using at least ten terms from a specialized dictionary. I guess when I chose to use the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue  from my own bookshelf, I should have realized that at least 1/2 of the terms would involve sexual innuendo. Nonetheless, I decided to proceed. I must warn you that the following poem is a bit risqué, so please avoid reading it if rude language offends thee!

The 16 terms I used and their definitions are given after the poem. If you wish, you might want to read them before the poem, or you can try to follow context clues to discover their meaning on your own:

 

“The Gawkey and Flaybottomist—Who Should Have Stopped When First They Kissed”

I predict the cross patch and the flaybottomist
are the sort of women least likely to be kissed.
The first’s so busy grumbling that the kiss never connected,
while the second merely thinks of how the kiss may be corrected.

Now, there was an awkward village boy excessively unworldly,
that on one occasion had acted most absurdly
by planting a fast buss upon his teacher’s nearby cheek
then since he was both young and shy, he beat a fast retreat.

The following week when mellow, he thought he’d try again—
His amorous nature brought out by much congress with his gin.
He desired a bit of relish, and the gin made him a fool
So he took his gaying instrument up to the village school.

I fear he was a gawkey–the worst that you might meet,
and he tripped over his crab shells as he stumbled up the street.
The roaring boys pursued him, thinking they would later cackle—
leaking all the secrets of where gawkey stowed his tackle.

Upon his knock, the school teacher opened up the door,
attired in her negligee–and I fear nothing more.
She greeted him with Friday-face, but he took little note,
for he was practicing the lines that he had learned by rote.

The teacher was a dumplin and her suitor tall and thin,
yet when she heard his practiced plea, I fear she let him in.
But what he didn’t know then, as he quenched his carnal thirst
was that on that night of visitors, he was not the first.

The reason our flaybottomist had greeted him ungowned,
clad only in her negligee and with her hair unwound,
was because the French instructor had been there to give instruction—
a fact that I fear later led to misery and destruction.

For her tutor left her Frenchified, which she passed to the gawkey,
who took his French leave quickly, feeling a good deal less cocky.
The moral of this little tale—at least the one you’ll get?
Things are apt to get sticky when you’re the teacher’s pet!

 

Words from the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue used in this poem:

*crab shells:  Irish, shoes
*gawkey: a tall, thin, awkward man or woman
*gaying instrument: the penis
*cross patch: a peevish boy or girl, an unsocial or ill-tempered man or woman
*relish: carnal connection with a woman
*cackle or leaky: to blab or reveal secrets
*roaring boy: a noisy, riotous fellow
*flaybottomist: a schoolteacher
*mellow: almost drunk
*dumplin: a short thick man or woman
*tackle:  a man’s genitals
*Friday-face:  a dismal countenance (Friday being a day of abstinence.)
*French leave: to go off without taking leave of the company
*Frenchified: infected with venereal disease.
*Negligee: a woman’s undressed gown,
*buss: a kiss “kissing and bussing differ both in this, We busse our wantons,
but our wives we kisse! (Robert Herrick, “Hesperides,” 1648) from buss, 1570.

To see the NaPoWriMo prompt or to participate, go here: http://www.napowrimo.net/day-seventeen-2/

Although I doubt this poem will prompt much heavy breathing, I’m posting it on the WordPress site as well: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/breath/

Mr. Green Jeans Takes on Monsanto

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Captain Kangaroo promotional postcard, 1961

Mister Green Jeans Takes on Monsanto

David confronting the giant,
he has both the hammer and the stepladder
with which to confront the colossus.
Once the school bell rings
and I have vanished halfway through
Captain Kangaroo’s lilting theme music
that signals that one last commercial––

barreling out our front door
towards the vintage wooden elementary school
that leans so close
across the gravel street that divides us
that I can start out on the first ring of the final morning warning bell
and be in my seat on the second floor
by the time the last dong sounds––

Mr. Green Jeans is going to take on Monsanto
in a wrestling match––
transformed by his color
and that ladder
into a Jolly Green Giant
who will save the world
for future generations.

Of course, this is a dream I had.
Each brave nation not our own
must take on the task for itself––
saving the world one enlightened country at a time.
Anyway, even in fantasy, any kid of the fifties and early sixties
knows Mr. Green Jeans was a handyman, not a horticulturist.
It is poetic license that wrote this poem.

See Mr. Green Jeans here:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_nrfpPcxQw

Mute Assistance

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Mute Assistance

Trapped in a lake under the kelp,
I’m gonna need a little help.
While climbing ladders, as I stand there
I could use a steadying hand there.
A sous chef’s nice when cooking meals,
a strong arm needed when I wear heels;
but when I tell a funny story,
or one that’s scary, tense or gory,
as towards the denouement I’m wending,
don’t help by blurting out the ending!

 

 

The prompt today was HELP!

Drop It!!!

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Drop It!!!

Drop a hint or drop your jeans.
This word sounds like what it means.
A little word both curt and short
that seeks to tell dogs to abort
their plans to hoard the stick we’ve thrown.
“Drop it, boy,” we all intone
when it’s time for them to stop it,
bring the stick to us and drop it!

I’ve dropped a cake and dropped a name
now and then.They’re not the same.
We’ve all dropped––and been dropped as well.
The first? Relief. The second? Hell.
Eye drops soothe an aching eye,
To drop’s to cease, or fall or die.
“Dew Drop Inn” is a timeworn name
for a motel that’s rather lame.

To drop someone a line is nice,
but dropping in on me’s a vice.
So call ahead, if you are able––
Email, Skype or Tweet or cable;
but do not show up at my door
no matter how much I adore
you, for I do not like to drop
what I’m doing to have to stop

to talk or buy or give direction.
“Dropping in” is an infection
endemic to a smaller town
where neighbors given to plopping down
daily might enact the sin
of dropping by or dropping in–
bad habits that when they aren’t stopped
result in those friends being dropped.

In short, I’ve dropped this hint enough.
Enough of subtlety and fluff.
I will state clearly this one set truth.
“Dropping in” is just uncouth.
If my house is on your route,
just wave or give your horn a toot.
That is sufficient for you to do.
If you drop in, I might drop you!

You haven’t had enough?  Here is another sillier poem on the subject of dropping in.

(The one-word prompt today was “Drop.”)

Half a Love Story

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“Half a Heart” detail of mixed media wall sculpture by jdb  (Wood, moss, shells and assorted dried beach scrub.)

Half a Love Story

Lately, when it comes to kissing
something seems to have gone missing;
for if the kissing rules are heeded,
it’s clear two pairs of lips are needed.

I have the half that’s labeled “me.”
I only lack the one called “he.”
So when it comes to birds and bees,
I must rely on memories!

The one-word prompt today was “Incomplete.”

Flow Chart

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Flow Chart

Ebb and flow, ebb and flow––
at first our lives seem very slow.
Once the Christmas tree came down,
vacuum cleaners all over town
removed needles curled and brown,
and echoed each child’s yearly whine
as they picked up remains of pine.
Why did Christmas have to go?

Then that slow tick of passing time
through other holidays sublime:
Valentine’s and Easter and
Mayday with its sleight-of-hand
as a basket-wielding band
(before they quickly pushed the bell,
turned on their heels and ran like Hell)
moved silently as any mime.

July 4th and Halloween
moved across the year’s broad screen
as days both secular and holy
that children loved came on so slowly.
Holidays just seemed to creep
trudging up a year so steep
impatient children had to weep
impatiently and make a scene.

Thanksgiving filled with birds to stuff
should have pleased them all enough,
but thoughts of Christmas swirled instead
through each greedy little head.
Christmas music, gifts and trees
pervade the brisk Thanksgiving breeze
bringing children to their knees.
Waiting for Christmas is so tough!!!

But years pass quicker as we get older.
From fresh to hot to crisp to colder.
Time that used to flow so thickly
suddenly moves by so quickly
that that dread April holiday
wherein we pay and pay and pay
does not seem far enough away
as we search for our taxes folder!!!

(Click on first photo and then on arrows to enlarge and move through gallery.)

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/flow/

Chillin’

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(Click on first photo to enlarge and arrows to view all images.)

Chillin’

If I were the queen of time, in charge of all its flow,
I’d speed it at the dentist, while dessert would progress slow.
Each bite of pie, with me in charge, would take at least a minute.
An ice cream cone would last an hour while I enjoyed what’s in it.

If I controlled the seconds, the hours and days and weeks,
a hummingbird’s flight would slow way down to afford us peeks.
A fine ballet would then commence whenever they flew by––
each move so delicate and slow––detectable by the eye.

House work would vanish quickly as the clicking of a finger,
while footrubs, hugs and kisses would be the things that linger.
The time between waking and sleep would flow as swift as water
If I were grandmother of hours–time passing’s favorite daughter.

If I could slice time thick or thin and serve it out in portions,
I’d speed up each painful death as well as birth’s contortions.
I’d slow down bullets leaving guns and thus destroy their power.
I’d slow how fast the ice cube melts, the lifetime of each flower.

Sunsets would last for hours and time with friends for days,
so we’d enjoy together each evening’s parting rays.
Plane rides with their narrow seats and no room for our knees
would pass as fast as possible–as quickly as you’d please.

Time before a party would go slow to afford time
for the cleaning of the house, the cutting of each lime.
And once each flower is put in place, the buffet table done,
time’s pace would be restored again and revelry begun.

When we need more or less of it, time would be there for us.
Our favorite songs would be strung out. Braggarts would never bore us.
There’d be more time for writing, for eating and the arts.
Headaches would pass in seconds. So would  anger, angst and farts!

If I controlled the hours,  the world would be run smoother.
Instead of causing us much angst, time would be our soother.
If I could dole out time so it was spread on thin or thickly,
perhaps I could have managed for this poem to end more quickly!

The Prompt: Pace Oddity––If you could slow down an action that usually zooms by, or speed up an event that normally drags on, which would you choose, and why?https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/pace-oddity/