Category Archives: humorous poetry

Mirror Fearer

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The Prompt: The Mirror Crack’d—You wake up one morning to a world without mirrors. How does your life — from your everyday routines to your perception of yourself — change?

 
Mirror Fearer

Every time I walk past it, I look into the glass
and notice how my hair looks and then survey my ass.
I cannot help but look at it, every time I pass—
criticizing how I look, both fuzziness and mass.
And in my deepest feelings, despite my brains and sass,
I can’t avoid this feeling that men must find me crass.
And so I guess I really feel that it would be a gas
if you took away the mirrors from this self-critiquing lass!

My Promoter

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The Prompt: You, Robot—You’ve been handed a robot whose sole job is to relieve you of one chore, job, or responsibility you particularly hate. What is it?

                                                                        My Promoter

Since Ray Bradbury wrote of one in “There Will Come Soft Rains,”
the list of things robots can do seems to have made great gains.
Some are made to wash our hair. Others shave our heads.
They build our houses, clean our floors and even make our beds.
I grant that it is handy that there’s one that scoops dog poop,
and one to stop our snoring, another to cook soup.
Lonely? One shoots billiards and perhaps it lets you win;
but do not gamble with it, for I hear it cheats at gin.
It’s great that there’s a robot that lifts patients out of bed,
but since I am still mobile, I have other needs instead.
I want a robot that can read and surf the internet
to send out my submissions and to guarantee I’ll get
an agent and a publisher to dispense all my writing
and send it to reviewers so my words they would be citing!
Send it out to libraries, to Amazon and Kindles.
Keep track of my royalties so there would be no swindles.
In short, I want a robot that will publicize and fight
so all this writer has to do is write and write and write.

As far-fetched as these robots sound, they are all based on reality.  For more information, go to: http://mentalfloss.com/article/30898/10-robots-very-specific-tasks

 

Lear’s Fool or Harlequin?

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The Prompt today is “A Bookish Choice”—A literary-minded witch gives you a choice: with a flick of the wand, you can become either an obscure novelist whose work will be admired and studied by a select few for decades, or a popular paperback author whose books give pleasure to millions. Which do you choose?

Lear’s Fool or Harlequin?

Obscure or popular? That witch
creates a choice that is a bitch.

For, if at fame I had a chance
only if I wrote romance,

I’d prefer to be unknown,
in my corner, all alone,

writing words they’ll find profound
if in fact they’re ever found.

But wait. Have we two choices only?
Trite and read/genius and lonely?

Where is it written I must depend
upon a witch to plan my end?

Since when has either witch or fairy
determined what is literary?

Once I took a little breather,
I decided I’d choose neither!

Rebellious thoughts swirl through my head.
I’ll simply write my blog instead!!!

Wrinkle

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Wrinkle

Once when I was younger, poundage was the thing—
as I obsessed about the growth calories might bring.
Every morning on the scale, I checked for extra girth.
Any extra poundage was how I gauged my worth.
But now that I am older, I check the mirror first
before I stop to weigh myself or slake my morning thirst.
First thing on my agenda, if I have the chance,
is to approach my mirror to have a daily glance.
Now every little wrinkle, every little line
viewed within my mirror brings a little whine.
But when I step upon the scale, there’s less there to regret.
If I’ve gained a pound or two, I vow just to forget.
For if I’ve found new wrinkles, all that I can say
is every extra pound I gain just stretches them away.

The Prompt: New Wrinkles—You wake up one day and realize you’re ten years older than you were the previous night. Beyond the initial shock, how does this development change your life plans?  Actually, I don’t worry much about wrinkles, but for the sake of rhyme and humor, let’s just pretend!

Pining for the Prompt

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Pining for the Prompt

Checking e-mails, cooking curry.
Where’s the prompt? Please hurry, hurry!
Not a mother, not a wife,
But still, WordPress, I have a life!

I need to go to buy some rice,
and a shower would be nice.
I’d like to take a swim and then
comb OkCupid for some men.

Instead, I sit like some blog glutton,
staring at my “renew” button.
Is every minute too excessive?
Every hour too regressive?

I understand this sleeping in
on Sunday’s really not a sin.
For, however, those who wait,
it feels like you’ve stood up your date!

That we adore you goes unsaid,
(We know you probably aren’t paid.)
But if all Sunday you plan to snore,
could you please prompt the night before?

(Note:  The prompt was finally posted at 11:43 PM.  Now the question is, is this today’s late prompt or tomorrow’s early one?  Always a new thrill in the world of blogging!!!  Since I’ve already written four poems today, guess I will think of this prompt for tomorrow, or not at all.  Anyway, I think with a prompt this late it was fair to choose my own, don’t you? Happy blogging.)

Sunday Morning Addendum

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Sunday Morning Addendum

I used to go to church on Sunday, natural as breathin’,
but when the Daily Prompt is late, I turn into a heathen!
I wait and wait and look and look, refreshing up my browser.
So if you know our prompter, kindly call her up and rouse ‘er?
The end result of sleeping in is one I know too well.
Though she will get her beauty sleep, it’s I who’ll go to Hell!

Grandma Steps Out

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Grandma Steps Out

It is one thing to be born before the age of computers or television, but my grandma lived in an age before flip-flops! So it was that she was reduced to modernizing herself with a pre-flip-flop substitute: a pair of navy blue Keds canvas tennis shoes, stretched out over her bunions to a point near bursting. She wore these Keds daily, whether she was combing the sidewalks and ditches of our little town for lost balls and toys and Cracker Jack prizes or shuffling into church in her best navy blue crepe dress with black glass beads and cake crumbs decorating the bodice.

The prompt: Odd Trio Redux—Time for another Odd Trio prompt: write a post about any topic you want, in whatever form or genre, but make sure it features a slice of cake, a pair of flip-flops, and someone old and wise.

(This is a short one, so I’m also including a longer poem  written about the same grandma:)

Buried Treasure

She always wore a navy dress of heavy crepe
with dozens of small black buttons down the front.
Her jewelry, turned dull black
by some body chemistry that I share,
lay abandoned in her dresser drawer,
the food stains spilling down her front,
her new adornment.

Trunks in her house were filled
with ill-stitched pillowcases,
her handiwork
rendered less carefully year-by-year
as her eyesight failed—
her useless glasses repaired at the bridge
with thick amber glue
she bought by the box to sell
but never did.

Every Christmas, her gift to me
was one more from her cache of dozens
of small plastic lamps powered by batteries—
another failed scheme received in the mail
that had promised to swell her fortune.

Her china cabinet
was crowded to each edge
with 96 years of carnival glass,
milk glass and heavy Dutch beer mugs,
green dishes from soap boxes
and cut glass jelly goblets—
treasures doled out to us
one per visit towards the end,
as though she sensed
the inescapable.

The day of the fire, she didn’t want to leave her things:
canning jars full of Cracker Jack prizes
and other treasures mined from her pockets
after a neighborhood stroll.
They carried her, kicking and screaming, from her house
and put her in our car.
“All right, old girl,” my dad said,
and drove her 50 miles
to the nearest residence for the elderly.

I remember all of this
after a Christmas gathering with friends
as I clean food spills
from my Mexican-embroidered blouse:
how they bulldozed her house
with most of her treasures inside
and built a hospital on the land;
how it, too, now lies abandoned
in the dying town,
its cobwebbed rooms giving no testament
to that which lies below:
trunks filled with yellowing embroidered sheets and pillowcases,
shelf upon shelf of Mason jars
filled with the collection of her lifetime:
buried riches
whose containers have acquired a worth
far beyond the trinkets they contain.

And, why not one more?  If you’ve been reading me for awhile, you may have read this one before, so just skip it if you wish. It’s another one about my grandma and her sister.

“Sisterly Squabbles”

A little weep, a little sigh,
a little teardrop in each eye.

Grandma Jane and her sister Sue,
one wanted one hole, the other, two

punched into their can of milk.
(All their squabbles were of this ilk.)

The rest, of course, is family fable.
They sat, chins trembling, at the table.

When my dad entered, we’ve all been told,
their milk-less coffee had grown cold.

Plus One: The Eighth Deadly Sin: (A Dating Primer for Errant Males)

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Plus One: The Eighth Deadly Sin:
(A Dating Primer for Errant Males)

Wrath and avarice and pride
can be safely kept inside.
So although we all may be them,
it is often hard to see them.

If you are a seasoned actor,
sloth will never be a factor
leading to your firing
or premature retiring.

Often envy, I confess,
is one more way that I transgress;
but even though we’re caught inside it,
almost all of us can hide it.

Lust is the sin that’s most unfurled
upon us in this modern world
in every book and magazine.
In movies? It’s in every scene.

And though sex is oft debated,
we only label them X-rated;
and though we profess to abhor them,
in solitude, we may adore them.

Gluttony’s the only sin
we cannot seem to keep within;
for everything that meets our lips,
alas, is carried on our hips!

Each is labeled “deadly sin”—
the one outside, others within;
but I’m inclined to add another
perhaps not taught you by your mother.

These deadly sins from one to seven
may be what keep you out of heaven,
but it’s transgression number eight
that will ban you as my date!

You may talk as you pour wine,
and continue as we dine;
but when I start to tell a tale,
heaven help the errant male

who utters “Me, too . . . ” then proceeds
to list more of his facts and deeds.
As music fades and lights all dim,
bringing the subject back to him!

I know that sinning is the fate
of many couples on a date.
So lust may now and then corrupt me,
but no one gets to interrupt me!!!!

Justification

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Justification

I spent all day in town today for business and for pleasure,
so by the time I got back home, I felt I’d had full measure
of driving-selling-trying on, shopping-eating-walking;
so I just thought I’d have some time that didn’t include talking.
I put my suit on thinking I would jump right in the pool,
but then the cat began to whine, the dogs commenced to drool—
sure signals it was feeding time—in this they were united.
They’ve learned their human serves their supper faster when invited.

The problem was, the dog food was still up in the car,
so I ran out to get it. (It wasn’t very far.)
I fed the dogs and cat, then found new flea collars I’d bought,
and so, of course, I had to put new collars on the lot.
Then, finally, the pool was mine—aerobic exercise
kept my body busy while a movie wooed my eyes
to disregard the time that passed while bending, kicking, flopping,
for when I am distracted, I am less intent on stopping.

With no prompt to finish early, I just went on and on.
Two hours passed so quickly that the setting of the sun
(and the ending of the movie—I guess I must admit)
finally gave the signal that it was time to quit.
But as I climbed the ladder, something poked my breast—
something sharp and lumpy that had made a little nest
there between my cleavage all my hours in the pool;
and when I drew it out you can’t image what a fool

I felt like, for this faux pas cannot help but win the prize
of all the times that I’ve done stupid things in any guise.
As teacher, daughter, writer, artist, sister, lover, friend,
I’ve committed stupid acts impossible to mend.
But this one takes the cake, I’m sure, as stupidest by far.
I’ve told you how I went to get the pet food from the car,
then fed and put flea collars on protesting dogs and cat.
(I doubt you’d do much better when dealing with all that!)

When I went out to do all this, I didn’t want to lose ‘em.
That’s why my car keys (with remote) wound up within my bosom!


Try as we may, those little indicators of age will sneak up on us.  There is no plastic surgery for a sagging memory!!!  (The Prompt today was:  “Age is just a number,” says the well-worn adage. But is it a number you care about, or one you tend (or try) to ignore?”)

DSC07216
Wonder of wonders, when I put the key in the ignition the next morning, it worked!!! Saved on this one!

Unstarched

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Unstarched

My ladies writing group is classy—never crass or gaudy.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I found they can be bawdy!
Just one impromptu potluck and a few bottles of wine
turned their metaphoric minds to matters far less fine.
For Jenny had just mentioned that a friend had lately lent her
a rather naughty film that nonetheless had really sent her
off into the paroxysms of unbridled laughter—
the kind that take you wave-on-wave and leave you aching after.
I’d been needing that for months—my life had been sedate
since my old gang had moved away and left me to my fate
of no last-minute games of train and late-night jubilation,
for though I still have good friends here, I lack that combination
of friends that I enjoy who all enjoy each other, too,
enough to create silliness to make my nights less blue.

“Bad Grandpa” was the film we watched, and though I must admit
I watched behind spread fingers for at least a fifth of it,
still the antics had us all just rolling on the floor
—starting with a snicker and then ending with a roar.
Scatology is not my thing, nor are pratfalls or shtick,
yet still I must admit to you, I got a real big kick
from this film filled with all of them, and so did all the others;
so as we watched, it felt like we were all sisters and brothers.
And as they left, I think we knew we’d shared a priceless treasure,
for there’s nothing that unites us like a mutual guilty pleasure!

The Prompt: When was the last time you watched something so scary, cringe-worthy, or unbelievably tacky — in a movie, on TV, or in real life — you had to cover your eyes?