Category Archives: humorous poetry

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Trick Retreat

At five o’clock they climb the hill and they ring my bell.
When I do not answer, the mob begins to swell.
Their cries of “We want Halloween!!” resound like cries from Hell.

My dogs begin a clamoring—and barks turn into growls.
The children’s only English words digress to angry howls
that prompt a shiver down my back––a loosening in my bowels.

I give in and seize the bowl and open up the gate.
The children swell around me, angry I’m so late.
They dig their hands into the bowl—in no mood for debate.

When I scream out “Take only one!” they begin to mind,
and they become more orderly and line up one behind
another as a snake of children starts to move and wind

from the bottom of the hill up to my front door
but when it seems I’ve served them all, there are always more:
one hundred, then two hundred, three hundred and then four!

And when I think the line perhaps is starting to get thin,
I finally discover that they got in line again
and came back to my doorway––where they’ve already been!

My candy store’s diminished, in fact there is no more
and they grow disorderly, waiting at my door
as I distribute all my fruit—right down to the last core.

Then I start giving canned goods—beans and corn and peas.
By the time my larder’s empty, they have brought me to my knees.
“Please, go home,” I beg them. “Leave my house now, please!”

But they have no pity. They are carrying off my plants.
I go into my closets and bring out my shirts and pants.
Still I hear requests for more—their demands and their rants.

I give them all my easy chairs, my pictures and my rugs,
my glasses and my dishes, my pots and pans and mugs.
From my refrigerator, I return with bowls and jugs.

Until my house is empty, they refuse to go away;
but finally I have no more, and I begin to pray
that they will soon release me from this relentless fray.

And then I see a ray of hope as across the street
my neighbor opens up his door and children’s footsteps beat
in a new direction—as they mount a swift retreat.

I hear my neighbor’s screams and cries as they shout for more.
Though I should go and help him, I’m yellow to the core
as I take the coward’s action and swiftly slam my door!!!

Mexico is lovely. It’s warm and lush and green.
I love its smiling people. I love its rich cuisine.
But there’s one drawback to living here that I have clearly seen.

I RUE THE DAY THAT MEXICO DISCOVERED HALLOWEEN!!!!!

1913688_1136037647847_2684641_n 1913688_1136037727849_5594428_n 1913688_1136038367865_7037617_n 1913688_1136038287863_5588685_n1913688_1136037767850_5683525_n (1)1913688_1136038167860_1696102_n 1913688_1136038127859_5133796_n 1913688_1136038527869_395578_n 1913688_1136038207861_6603987_nIn response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Trick or Trick.” Let’s imagine it’s Halloween, and you just ran out of candy. If the neighborhood kids (or anyone else, really) were to truly scare you, what trick would they have to subject you to?

More Unruly Punctuation

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                                                                        More Unruly Punctuation

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “By the Dots.” We all have strange relationships with punctuation — do you overuse exclamation marks? Do you avoid semicolons like the plague? What type of punctuation could you never live without? Tell us all about your punctuation quirks!

Since I’ve answered this exact prompt before,  please go HERE to read my poem on this subject and remember that the punctuation marks that are not meant to be merely functional (the ones in blue and boldface) are meant to be pronounced in full.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Right to Brag.” Tell us about something you (or a person close to you) have done recently (or not so recently) that has made you really, unabashedly proud.
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Acclaim

Those who seek to elevate
their fame with words too profligate
often find that others balk
at such narcissistic talk.

One heard tooting his own horn
is often lonely and forlorn.
When it comes to charity,
many have reached parity
who do not need to try to flout it,
let alone to shout about it.

Others have performed great acts
without broadcasting the facts
of honors won or feats achieved,
and one who boasts is oft believed
to be exaggerating––or,
is simply thought to be a bore

So, even though you’re justly proud,
please don’t voice that fact out loud.
If your act is worth a plaudit,
best leave it to another to laud it!


Why I Do Not Ham on Rye it

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Why I do not Ham on Rye it

You cannot borrow steal or buy it.
Sumo wrestlers never try it.
Female starlets do or die it.
Vitamin makers fortify it
You never cookie, cake or pie it.
Pizza parlors terrify it.
Now and then I me oh my it,
but I hope I don’t defy it,
for if I ever hope to guy it,
I simply must stay on my diet!

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The Prompt: What is  one thing at which you are the most afraid of failing?
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/must-not-fail/

I Feel Good!!!

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yes
I Feel Good!!!!

The mirror that’s in front of me shows very little gut,
and when I look behind me, I can’t even find my butt.
It’s true I am so lithe and slim that I can’t cease my looking,
for self-admiration has replaced the fun of cooking.

Gazing deeply at myself—my mesmerising eyes—
has replaced my fascination with cookies and with pies.
Time spent in the past communing with burgers and fries,
now is spent perusing my waistline and my thighs.

If you want to ask me out to pizza or to pie it,
I cannot follow either plan, in fact I must decry it.
I could not even get a date before this year-long diet,
so if it involves calories, I fear I must deny it.

It’s not that I’m objecting to a bit of her and himming.
It’s just that I prefer activity that is more slimming.
A jog perhaps or calisthenics in the local gym—
something that will keep us both toned and tight and trim?

And afterwards if you should ask me in to have a drink,
the reason that I turn you down is not what you may think.
It’s true that since my bod is fit, I don’t want to abuse it.
The problem is that I’m too tired to ever get to use it!

Picture Prompt #29

Lunch Date (Old-Fashioned Attention): JNW’s Prompt Generator

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Lunch Date

One thing I’d like that I will mention
is a bit of old-fashioned attention.
The kind with no device in hand
is the kind that I can stand

better than the sort with texting
minds caught in “before” and “next”ing
and not a thought for whom you’re with
until I’m sure that it’s a myth

that I’m the one you want to see,
even though you have invited me.
For though our table is for two,
you bring so many more with you–

every relative and friend.
Your texts to them just never end.
Our tete a tete‘s become absurd.
I never get to speak a word!

So there’s one thing I’d like to state.
Please cancel our next luncheon date.
The next time you desire a munch,
just take your iPhone out to lunch!


My prompt was “Old-fashioned Attention.” To get a prompt or see more JNW Prompt-Generated posts, go HERE.

Needless to say, there will be no sequel to this lunch date, but to see posts about sequels to movies, go here: https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/missing-seqeuls/

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The Dating Game

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The Dating Game

The prompt I generated on JNW’s Prompt Generator was: “tender opportunity.” I hit the generator button again and got “repulsive industry,” When I saw both prompts together, a perfect topic came  to mind. These prompts, in tandem, seemed to describe the two sides of the online social-introduction industry perfectly, so I decided to try to use both prompts. Although this poem sounds a bit bitter, it is really meant tongue-in-cheek as the first phrase was tweaked a bit by the second. I’ve met some really nice guys in the past six years I’ve been on social sites, but just none where both of us wanted to make it permanent.

In the past couple of years, OKC has changed a lot and doesn’t seem to be the special place it once was. They’ve taken away journals, forums, awards, search engines and erased the first few years of information. I’ve pretty much replaced it with blogging, which seems to work better for really getting to know people and the focus has changed from searching for love in all the wrong places to forming real bonds with words, not faces. A few good friends have even followed me from OKC. You know who you are. Here is my little ditty on the subject of the two prompts mentioned above:

When I Joined OkCupid

I considered it to be
a tender opportunity.
Instead I fear it just became
a sort of endless dating game.

Crabby grandpas, lying spouses,
hermits shut up in their houses,
voyeurs looking for a thrill,
twenty-somethings with time to kill.

Men who say they want to talk
who, when asked questions, merely balk.
Whatever it claims to be,
It’s a repulsive industry—

a place that doesn’t want to match us
but rather just to try to catch us
in a web of constant circulation–
a type of lovelorn masturbation.

Years later, I’ve made special friends
and yet the cycle never ends.
Though I’d like love with every fiber,
I fear my love life remains cyber.

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Stronger

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Stronger

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger”.

I wish that when it didn’t kill me it had made me stronger,
for I don’t know if I can hold this lion’s mouth closed much longer.

 

Tina, The Bo Bina provided this favorite quote for me to use as the prompt for a poem.Go see her website as well!

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Relax, it’s only henna! I get a Mayan tattoo on my lower leg every time I go to the beach. It fulfills all my contradictory impulses.

Change of Mind

Tattooed pierced and branded, or to be marked for life
with patterns carved into the skin with a sterile knife?
I cannot help but tell you that I find it very strange–
this trend to decorate ourselves by means that we can’t change.

When I was in my twenties, I bought a gorgeous hat
of pink and blue with colored plumes that swayed this way and that.
But what if I had had it sewn forever to my head,
so when I desired a wedding veil, I had feathers instead?

What if those chandelier earrings I found so cool in my teens
were implanted so I couldn’t take them off by any means?
So when I trekked across the jungles, weaving through the trees,
those earrings caught upon the vines and brought me to my knees?

My hair would be a helmet, and my eyes would look so queer
if worn like I did at twenty with eyeliner ear to ear.
So I cannot help but think this child with corks stretching her lobes
might regret them in her forties as she dons her judge’s robes.

Or the youngsters with the tongue studs, one day when they are men
might regret it as the shots they drink leak out onto their chin.
I’m so glad those mini skirts I wore—a poor choice even then––
are not still sewn upon my hips now that I am more Zen.

Thank God those darker outlined colors that made our lips less thin
and those psychedelic tie-dyes are not printed in our skin.
For although our taste was laughable, at least we can repent–
for the choices that we made in youth were not permanent.

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And, that hat mentioned in the poem? It really existed and still does, although no, I have not worn it in over 40 years. Here it is, a side view!

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Tattoo….You?.” Do you have a tattoo? If so, what’s the story behind your ink? If you don’t have a tattoo, what might you consider getting emblazoned on you skin?

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Re”tire”ment

When I was younger, my mind turned on a dime.
I did what I had to do in very little time.
But now that I am older, things don’t go so fast.
I’m not “spur-of-the-momentish” as I was in the past.

I don’t throw big parties as I did in former days,
for dealing with the details just puts me in a haze.
I can’t do many things at once without getting confused.
Now I simply write my blog while once I danced and boozed!

At first I felt ashamed of how my life is slowing down,
hating that I do not seek the company of town.
But then I noted patterns in nature around me
and saw that this is simply how our lives are meant to be.

Each thing in its season and each thing in its time
is how our lives are ordered—to accept this is sublime.
Why do I need to live my youth and middle age again?
Why not just accept that this is how my life has been

and go on to the next stage without sadness or regret—
going on to see just how much better life can get?
Yes, it is the pits to get arthritic, slow and hazy;
but we are compensated by excuses to be lazy!

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “The Heat is On.” Do you thrive under pressure or crumble at the thought of it? Does your best stuff surface as the deadline approaches or do you need to iterate, day after day to achieve something you’re proud of? Tell us how you work best.