Category Archives: humorous poetry

Fresh Worms for Sale

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Fresh Worms for Sale

Many have not come to terms
with the benefits of worms.
They find them repulsive and squishy.
Revolting, creepy, crawly, ishy.

But these folks tend to just react
without examining each fact
of all that folks could find to do
with worms if they’d just buy a few.

Granted, worms that wad and mingle
lack the charm of just a single
worm that can be used for bait
on a hook and with a weight,

but every person knows this use,
which always calls for worm abuse.
Worms, however, also toil
to break up and aerate the soil.

In jars with holes poked in the lids,
worms make good pets for little kids.
Good for hours of watching, they need
little care and little feed.

Worms don’t need collars, leashes, dishes,
never go against your wishes.
They are not barkers nor run-arounds.
None of the nastiness of hounds.

They have no hair to grow and shed.
You do not have to pat their head.
They have no other nasty habits
like gerbils, hamsters, cats or rabbits.

You don’t have to change their litter.
When traveling, you don’t need a sitter.
No vet bills when your pets are worms–
no fleas nor ticks nor mites nor germs.

Worms take up very little space
and may be trained to run a race.
And if you make a well-placed bet,
they just might get you out of debt.

The benefit of worms now told,
May I consider this worm sold?
Surely you’ll find much to do
with one or two that leave with you.

If you’re not a  fisherman
and if a pet’s not in your plan,
If you are a sadistic sickie,
just put one down your girlfriend’s dickie!*

*for the youth among us, a dickey is a turtle neck or collared inset
that may be worn under a vee-necked sweater or jacket to create the illusion that one is wearing a sweater or blouse under it.

The Prompt: Embrace the Ick–Think of something that truly repulses you.  Hold that thought until your skin squirms.  Now, write a glowing puff piece about its amazing merits.

Enough’s Too Much

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Enough’s Too Much!!

Enough’s too much when it comes to fish
or any other smelly dish.
Too much for castor oil in spoons
or relatives on honeymoons.
Amoebas?  Any one’s too much,
and a date who wants you to go Dutch
clearly tells you he’s not “it.”
One mosquito, when you’re bit,
is not “enough,” but “one too many.”
when your preference is “not any!”

Kids with colds and snoopy neighbors,
tiresome chores and heavy labors,
bitter pills and jerked-off scabs,
rainy days with no free cabs,
diarrhea, scabies, gout?
Too much! Too much, without a doubt!
“Enough’s enough” is repetitious,
obvious and almost vicious.

So don’t go spouting it at me.
I hate cliches from A to Z.
I won’t have any said to me.
If you use them, you’re dead to me!
“It is sufficient” I will accept.
“I’ll have no more”  is most adept.
But don’t go muttering platitudes
at folks like me with attitudes,
or I promise we’ll be getting rough
enough to prompt, “Enough’s enough!”

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Enough Is Enough.” Wow, this sounds so grouchy.  It is meant tongue-in-cheek.  I’ve probably used the phrase hundreds of times myself—usually directed at myself when I have lost my keys or glasses for the dozenth time that day!

Once Upon a Lime in Mexico

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Once Upon a Lime in Mexico

I was just a small amoeba living on a lime,
and though Judy disinfects her fruit every single time,
I fear that the bartender doesn’t bother to
so that is how the tale occurred that I am telling you.
She squeezed her lime above the ice, then dropped it in the drink.
The Coca Cola fizzed up and the ice began to clink.
As she took her first big swallow, I lost hold of the lime
and slid down a soft pink chute into another clime.

I’d heard of other journeys and knew how this might end,
but I decided I’d enjoy every curve and bend.
I wound up in a reservoir where I gave in to sleeping,
but woke up to a million of me jumping, kicking, leaping.
It wasn’t half so pleasant as it had been before,
so I commenced to swim around, looking for the door.
Unfortunately, though I found it, it seemed to be blocked.
The wind was brisk, the waters churned, but the way out was locked.

When I heard the one who had consumed me groan and cry and cuss,
I rued the fate to which that Cuba Libre had doomed us!
For as distressed as she must be with headache and each cramp,
I was suffering equally from jostling and the damp.
For two days she lived on Electrolit, in bed and with no food.
And I held on for my dear life, listening to my brood
tell of what we could expect, flushed to a watery hell
down in the earth with all our kin—this legend they knew well.

Two days I lived like this, just holding on for my dear life,
listening to her pleas as spasms cut her like a knife—
too ill to go for help and unable to even sit.
I wondered how much worse this grisly tale was going to get.
Then suddenly, this morning, I felt the waters swirl.
I felt myself slip-sliding right out of the girl
into a clear container where I could see the world
from prison I’d once more escaped, or rather, I’d been hurled!

I felt the jostling and the engine of the moving car
which set up small vibrations in my little jar.
Yet still my progeny and I enjoyed the five mile ride.
It was so much better now that we were not inside
that dark and windswept place where we’d resided for two days.
Though I’ll admit none of our legends accounted for this phase.
No other amoebian Aesop had written any story
that took a turning such as this. Former endings had been gory!

I heard the car door open, footsteps and a creaking door.
Other footsteps, blinding light, and I was freed once more!
Spread onto a sheet of glass, surveyed by a big eye,
I breathed a sigh of pure relief. I’m such a lucky guy.
While they weren’t looking, I slipped off and landed on a shelf
where ever since I’ve been observing others like myself
who have escaped amoeba hell at least for a small time.
While I’m in amoeba heaven, and my dears?  It is sublime!!!

So clean, well-lit and active. Just like a picture show.
I sit here so languidly and just go with the flow,
calling out encouragement to visitors like myself.
And now and then, others come and join me on my shelf.
The girl who works here likes to put her sandwich very near,
where it serves as a good cushion for those of my kind, I fear.
The moral? Take care what winds up inside you, please, my friends;
for in spite of all my warnings, this story never ends.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Once Upon a Time”—tell us about something that happened to you in real life last week — but write it in the style of a fairy tale.

Sorry, friends, this one is another groaner!!!!

Home from the Sea

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The Prompt: Re-springing Your Step–Tell us about the last experience you had that left you feeling fresh, energized, and rejuvenated. What was it that had such a positive effect on you?

The Answer: Two months living on the beach in La Manzanilla really did leave me feeling energized, relaxed and a bit nostalgic. I posted some words and photos earlier here and here and here. Below is the rest of the story:

Home from the Sea

That good old salty sea air combined with grainy sand
defined my beach vacation and went great with being tanned.
Felt great under my bare feet and squished between each toe.
And left footprints behind me, wherever I chose to go.
It crusted up my toenails and powdered all my floors.
Seeped into my keyboard and creaked up all my doors.
It told the upstairs neighbors when I’d gone and got back home.
It sneaked into my ear canals and caked up brush and comb.
In spite of all the nuisance of the sand within my bed,
those memories of beach life still swirl within my head.
Yet I needn’t wax nostalgic, for I find behind each knee,
in pockets, luggage and the floor—the beach came home with me!

Hindsight: From Grief to Verb Tense and Beyond!

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https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/hindsight/

From Grief to Verb Tense

The Prompt: Hindsight—Now that you’ve got some blogging experience under your belt, re-write your very first post.

My very first post was made on March 27, 2013. At that time, I thought my purpose in establishing a blog was to promote the book I’d been working on for the past two years,and so the blog was an announcement of the book and the next posting was a call for stories of how different people experienced and dealt with the grieving process. A few people did write in, but very quickly, I found that I didn’t want to be writing about and dealing with grief every day and this blog very quickly turned into a celebration of life again. Here is my very first post:

I’ve just sent the book I’ve been working on for 12 years to the printer!!!!

1 Master embossed -cream big & little spine copy copy
Lessons from a Grief Diary: Rebuilding Your Life after the Death of a Loved One
a new book by: Judy Dykstra-Brown and Anthony Moriarty, Ph.D.

 A widow’s grief diary chronicling the illness and death of her husband as well as the process of her recovery from grief over the next eight years is analyzed in alternating chapters by a psychologist. Includes methods of overcoming grief, suggested further reading and ending notes that summarize main points of the book.

Available on Amazon, Kindle and in Bookstores, including Diane Pearl Colecciones and Jose Melendrez’s store in the plaza in Ajijic, MX.

(The only change I’ve made to this post is to say that the book is now available.  For some reason I’d never changed over from saying it would soon be available.)

Then, on April 1, 2013, I published this post:

Someone sent me an invitation from NaPoWriMo to write a poem a day for a month, but I need a website to post them.  Since this is the only blog/website I have, I’m going to use this one.  There will be a poem each day for a month, all written on the day they were posted, dashed off quickly, but what fun to have completed 30 poems by the end of the month.  Please join me and post your poems here, as well.

Earlier today, someone posted a comment, then wrote back to change “lying”  to “laying.” Of course, I had to fight my better nature and write back that he was actually right the first time.  I then included this little poem, written in about a minute, to soften that pedantic blow.  Yes, I really am a “reformed” English teacher.  But I backslide now and then:

Old English teachers never die.
They just advise on “lay or lie?”
Driving friends who are grammatically hazy
Completely crazy!!!!

With that 4-line ditty, the course of this blog was reset and quickly became what it is today.

 

 

 

RESOLUTION

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The Prompt: To Be Resolved—We’re entering the final days of 2014 — how did you do on your New Year’s resolutions these past 11.75 months? Is there any leftover item to be carried over to 2015?

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Resolution

It isn’t my fault that my storybook’s still
thirty-two pages piled in a hill
next to the scanner on my kitchen table.
I’ll get it formatted when I am able.
Right after I glue all this beach stuff together—
each seashell and heart stone and pelican feather—
to make a Yule tree, then to make a Yule altar.
For weeks I’ve worked on them. Never did I falter.

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Then I had beach walks to do, daily swims,
tequila to drink as the sun slowly dims.
Everyone gathered to put down the day
and bring on the night time. What more can I say?

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A Saturday writing group, dinner with friends.
Of new obligations, the list never ends.
Now it’s two days till Christmas with parties to go to.
And a party to give that no one has said no to.

And so I’m not sure how many will come
I said “bring your friends” which I fear was most dumb.
It seems that I really don’t know how to do
a party where I only ask just a few.
I don’t  know how much food or know just how many
napkins to buy. Plates and cups? How uncanny
that I haven’t planned this thing better this year.
I’m not only slipping—I’ve lost it, I fear.

My thought streams are verging on, “Hey, what the fuck!”
I don’t know how many are bringing potluck
so there may be no food and not enough booze.
This party I’m giving may be a real snooze.
And right after this one are three potlucks more.
I think that it calls for a trip to the store.
I must clear out my house once I am able.
Clear all of my art projects off of the table.

 Hide my computer, relocate my scanner,
put up more Christmas lights under the banner.
There is so much for this writer to do
that I fear it will take one more week, maybe two
to format my book both for Kindle and print,
for somehow, my time has just got up and went.
This retreat to make time for my book has been taken
once more by busy work, book tasks forsaken.

But right after New Years, I swear they’ll be done.
No more excursions and no more beach fun.
I’ll sit at the table, right there in my chair.
I’ll chew on my pencil and worry my hair
and get this book formatted. Then get it sent
off to the printer so I can say “went.”
Instead of “will go” when all my friends ask
the state of the manuscript, stage of my task.

“I’m finished!” I’ll say. “Glory be, I am done!”
And I’ll feel less guilty for swimming and fun.
Then I’ll start in on the next book or two.
It won’t be hard, for there’s nothing to do
to distract me or keep me from doing my task.
Nothing to go to. No one to ask.
Except for my writers’ group, Friday night dance,
and a trip up the coast, if we have a chance.

The art show where I said I’d show a few pieces—
a ” few” obligations? The list never ceases.
I guess the truth is that our lives are made up
of what we must do and what we give up.
The irony, though, of the whole situation
is that it’s a matter of choice and duration.
The more tasks we find that we just have to do,
the more that we put off the remaining few.

I guess it’s a case of just fitting in
who we will be with who we have been.
That I keep on writing’s important because
I’d rather write “is” instead of put “was”
in front of “a writer” for the rest of my life;
but also in front of a friend, sister, wife.
For if we don’t put off living, doing and seeing,
the best stories we write will be tales of our being.

This is the tree in daylight. Palm fruiting stem covered in heart-shaped rocks and shells found on the beach, pelican feathers and flowers I made out of painted egg cartons.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and may all your resolutions be met.

The Yellow Dress

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The Prompt: Cause, Meet Effect—You can singlehandedly create a causal relation between two things that are currently unconnected — a word and an emotion, a song and an extreme weather event, wearing a certain color and winning the lottery. What cause would you link to
what effect, and why?

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The Yellow Dress

When she wears it, worlds collide.
Men collect on either side.
Women seek her company.
Children seek to grace her knee.

Potentates, senators, kings
bring her necklaces and rings.
Scholars write her name in books.
Jealous women exchange looks.

There is hardly anything
that nature does not seek to bring.
Winds blow harder, streams divert
when she wears that saffron skirt.

The very heavens note where she went.
Tsunamis curl, volcanoes vent.
Soldiers line up to parade.
Mimes begin their mute charade.

Actors emote better to
this goddess in her sunny hue.
Mourning doves just bill and coo.
Old boyfriends seek her out anew.

Yet as she stands before her glass,
surveying both her front and ass,
her mate says, “Are you wearing that?”
and she surmises she looks too fat.

As she changes into basic black,
the lava cools, the seas hold back.
Her suitors cease their clamoring press.
She does not wear the yellow dress.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/cause-meet-effect/

Not to Taste

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I took this picture in the river mentioned in the poem, but just noticed something. Doesn’t that look like a winged gnomish sprite looking down on the croc? (Center of photo, above the croc.)

 

Not to Taste

I have no taste for seafood—neither sea bass nor crustacean.
My friends’ attempts to feed them to me end in their frustration.
I cannot stand the taste of them—their odor nor their texture.
I’ve heard that they are good for me, so please spare me the lecture!

When I was in New Orleans, they tried to feed me gator.
I politely turned it down and had a burger later.
For though a gator’s not a fish, and that’s something I know,
they must be kin somehow, ‘cause both live in H2O!

Sometimes I go out birding up a river by the sea.
The grandson of the captain comes along to talk to me.
The river’s full of crocodiles, and birds overhead
fly in by the thousands to seek their evening bed.

They rest so gently in the trees that I forget the threat
of all those crocs there down below, lurking in the wet.
Most of the year the estuary’s cut off from the sea,
but this year there was one big rain that set the river free.

When I was swimming Saturday, beyond the surf, just me,
I saw some people looking at—whatever could it be?
I just went on exercising in the surf and sand.
The sun went down but I stayed out. The water was just grand.

But when I finally came to land, folks there on the beach
told me that a croc passed by, well beyond my reach.
And since I, too, was out there as handy as could be,
I sure am glad that crocodile had no taste for me!!!!

Calling Uncle Duckie

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The Prompt: Calling Uncle Bob—Have you ever faced a difficult situation when you had to choose between sorting it out yourself, or asking someone else for an easy fix? What did you choose — and would you make the same choice today?

Calling Uncle Duckie

I can’t get my link established. Guess I’m just unlucky.
Luckily, I have a fix. I just call Uncle Duckie!
He can fix most anything from formatting to routers;
but you’ve got to stay real calm. He doesn’t work with pouters!

“Uncle Duckie, dear,” I say via email or on Skype.
“I want to post my post now, but I have a little gripe.
I can’t get my poem to post in single space, my dear.
It looks too long when double-spaced, and I have a fear

no one will read a two-paged poem. Long postings are no fun.
Is there any way that I can get it down to one?”
“Hit shift-return at ends of lines,” he tells me really pronto.
On my blog he wears the mask. And me? I’m merely Tonto!!!! **

** Note: In Spanish, “Tonto” means stupid. In other words, if viewed in Guadalajara, our favorite childhood program would be called, “The Lone Ranger and Stupid!”

Pieromaniac

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Pieromaniac

At any time of day or night,
I’m always open to a bite
of pastry stuffed with something nice,
in fact, pie is my favorite vice!

I am very very very
fond of all things flavored cherry,
and of all this cherry pleasure,
pie’s the one that I most treasure.

Good for breakfast, good for lunch,
on pumpkin pie, I love to munch.
Coconut or chocolate cream?
They are my fantasy and dream.

Banana, apple—oh, and peach!
Put one of them within my reach,
and I’ll purloin a piece or two.
No pie is safe within my view.

On the window ledge or table,
I’ll grab a piece if I am able.
In a coffee shop or grandma’s kitchen,
pie’s delicious. Pie is bitchin’

At picnics, parties, celebrations,
with coffee or with small libations,
at any occasion or event,
pie is the best accompaniment.

Yet there is one aspect of pie
that I hope never meets my eye.
I don’t like pie in just one place.
Please don’t shove it in my face!

Today, I’m using the weekly challenge: Pie—The scent of pastry baking, the sound of a fork clinking on a plate… This week, make our mouths water with stories about pie.