Category Archives: humorous poetry

Beauty and the Beast

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Beauty and the Beast

“You Are Well Come” the banner read,
fluttering high over head.
From tree to tree it had been hung
with vibrant ribbons, securely strung.

Feasting tables were well laid
with mead and beer and lemonade.
The wedding cake stood tall bedecked,
sugar-spun and flower-flecked.

Roast joint of flesh and wheels of cheese
were laid, the wedding guests to please.
The wedding aisle strewn with flowers,
overhead the wedding bowers.

Organ music, strong and steady,
everything was poised and ready.
Heads were turned to footsteps heard
upon the pathway. Not one word

was uttered as the maiden entered.
Her pace was slow, her steps well-centered.
An arrow shot straight down the aisle,
veiled in silk and gowned in lisle.

The bridegroom marked her progress toward
the priest, the ring, the wedding gourd.
She took his hand, their vows were coined,
they sipped the gourd and thus were joined.

That night beauty would grace the bed
of the suitor she had wed.
The ending that you might foresee,
however, is not what will be.

Our plots in life have dips and bendings.
The same starts have different endings.
She wed the prince who slewed the beast
that now comprised the wedding feast!

 

The above poem was written to fulfill these three prompts:

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/07/19/fowc-with-fandango-steady/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/07/19/vibrant-july-19-2018/
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/07/19/rdp-49-welcome/

Sales Resistance

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Sales Resistance

Be careful of, suspicious of, and just a little wary
of people who are talented in speech extemporary
who arrive with suitcases filled with cash-and-carry
items, be they vacuum cleaners or a dictionary.
Their conversation humorous, their prattle light and airy,
their smiles may be luminous, and they may be so very
congenial and friendly, their demeanor downright merry,
and yet, my friend, I recommend that you take care to parry
their sales attacks. Before you buy, please take the time to tarry
and muster up your sales resistance so you purchase nary
a single item from this flam-flam Tom or Dick or Harry.
Just shoo him from your doorstep and off to Tucumcari!

 

The Ragtag prompt was extempore

Coffee with No Ceremony

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Coffee With No Ceremony

I lived in Addis Ababa adjoining Mexico Square.
I ate injera every day. Had cornrows in my hair.
I thought I knew it all, and though my language skills were poor,
I knew enough Amharic to get by in any store.

Seated in a circle, on low stools around a flame,
We watched Demekech fan the fire—this ritual the same
in every house and every village all throughout the land.
The thick and sludgy coffee was always ground by hand.

Boiled in a clay carafe, then set aside to brew
as in another little pot, some corn kernels she threw.
The popcorn taken from the flame, the colo nuts were next.
Except—we found that we had none, and we were sorely vexed.

The coffee jug was sealed up with a fresh-wound plug of grass
ready for the pouring, but one aspect of our mass
was missing, so I said I’d go to buy some at the souk,
lest our hospitality give reason for rebuke.

These little shops were many, lining both sides of the street;
and at each one, I knew the custom—always did I greet
the owner with proper respect, and always, he said, “Yes!”
when I asked if he had colo, but I couldn’t guess

why no one ever seemed to want to sell any to me.
Always the same reaction—first the shock and then the glee.
So, finally, I walked back home. My failure I admitted.
Departing, I had felt so smart, but now I felt half-witted.

What had I done wrong? I knew that every shop had colo.
The problem must have been that I had gone to get them solo!
Returning empty-handed, I felt I was to blame.
Coffee without colo was a pity and a shame.

But my roommate and our guests and cook were really most surprised.
I must have asked for something else than colo, they surmised.
What did I ask for? When I told them, they dissolved in laughter.
They said that I was lucky not to get what I asked after.

For colo had two meanings, depending on the stress
put on the first syllable, and I had made a mess.
Instead of nuts, they told me (and this was just between us,)
I had asked each souk owner—if he had a penis!

(This is a true story of only one of the gaffes I became famous for in the year and a half I taught and traveled in Ethiopia in the period leading up to the revolution that deposed Haile Selassie.) I published this four years ago but I think few were around then to read it, so here it comes again as I think it is a good example of how far I’m willing to go to extend a little hospitality.

 

 

 

 

The Ragtag prompt today is hospitable.

Judgement Day

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Judgement Day

I’m not too keen on spelling judgment without an “e.”
It simply doesn’t look right spelled that way to me!
Judge like fudge sure has one and grudge and pudge, the same.
Judgement makes so much more sense. Judgment is just lame!
“g” without an “e” is jug. That “e” when you renounce it,
and put a “d” before it? Impossible to pronounce it!
Arrangement has an “e” in it, so it just makes sense
to put an “e” in judgement, unless you’re really dense!
Merriam-Webster has it right when they say to use either.
Those that say you cannot just need to take a breather.
Those are all my arguments for spelling Judgement right.
So now it is not my fault if you do not see the light!!!!

The Ragtag prompt today is keen.
FOWC’s prompt today is judgment.

Swimming in the Rainy Season

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Swimming in the Rainy Season

To the end of the pool and back again,
I love swimming in the rain.
The economy of it is such
that though you’re wet two times as much,
it’s clear as day to sage or dunce—
you only have to dry off once!

The first two lines of this poem came to me as I was trying to get in a hurried exercise session in the pool before dressing to drive into town to a poetry group I belong to.  It was, in fact, raining, but there was no thunder and lightning as there always is at night, so I had put a shower cap on over my hair and done a half-hour session.

When I got back into the house after my pool session, I realized that I had only ten minutes until I had to leave, so I hurriedly scribbled the two lines  down on a sheet of paper in the bathroom as I put on makeup and brushed my teeth. I finished it when I got back home a few hours later.

For dVerse Poets open Link.

Chocolate!

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My talented singer/songwriter friend Christine Anfossie has just sent me the musical version of a poem I published earlier on my blog.  Here, again, is that poem and below is her musical rendition!  Love it.

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Chocolate

You’re being good and I am not.
I broke my diet and got caught.
I’d have resisted if I could,
but chocolate cake just looked so good.

I bought a piece, not a whole cake.
I thought a meal of it I’d make.
But now you feel you must rebut
my obvious need for chocolate.

Will you soon go? It’s getting late,
and there’s this chocolate on my plate.
And though I know it’s impolite,
the chances that I’ll share are slight.

Of your smug lecture I’ve had enough
and now it’s my turn to be tough.
If you must fall from your high throne
and dine on cake, go buy your own!

Click on the URL below to hear the musical version of my poem.  Thanks, Christine!

Caught Short

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Caught Short

Caught short by the rainy season, I should have known better.
Though I’d left home high and dry, I knew I’d soon be wetter.
Defenseless  in the downpour, I ducked into a store.
Just to get some shelter,  I rushed in through that door.

I felt that I was lucky as this store was full of stuff,
though finding what I needed might be sort of tough.
The store clerk shuffled up to me, though he could barely stand—
an umbrella just as old as him held up in his hand.

Lucky when I chanced upon this ancient wrinkled fella,
he happened to be carrying a really big umbrella!
I opened up my pocket book and located a fiver.
Now I wouldn’t spend this day wet as a scuba diver!

But when I left that thrift store with my practical new find,
I found that I was actually in the same old bind.
For opening up my parasol, I uttered “What the heck?”
as rivulets of water ran down my head and neck.

The purchase I’d just made, I found, would be no help at all.
I hadn’t noticed that the shop was St. Vincent de Paul.*
The fault was no one else’s.  I know it was mine, solely.
I should have realized sooner that my purchase would be holy!

 

*St. Vincent de Paul is a secondhand store run by the Catholic Church.

 

The Daily Addictions prompt was Ancient. This poem was published under a different name four years ago.

Squelched Evolution

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Squelched Evolution

I fear there’s a frustrating schism
between progress and atavism.
For though I’d like to best my folks,
adding my genius to the yolks
of  eggs of the next generation,
instead I feel great perturbation.
I could improve the family genes,
but fear that I have not the means.
For though I’m sure I’m an improvement,
our gene pool won’t see any movement.
There is a sure futility
regarding  mutability.
My evolution’s hit the skids.
I forgot to have some kids!!!!

 

This was written to fulfill two prompts. The RDP daily prompt is atavism and Daily Addiction’s prompt is futile.

Rainy Season Whine

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Rainy Season Whine

They can’t control the weather. The rain is its own boss.
So in the rainy season, we get our share of moss.
It wouldn’t be so bad if it would just grow where we choose,
but in the rainy season, it grows inside my shoes.

From June to September, we fall asleep to rain
and then in the morning, we wake up to it again.
Our clothing’s always soggy. Our clean cars do not last.
We can’t sit on the patio for a light repast.

We cannot play touch football with the wife and kids,
for when we do, our touchdowns wind up as muddy skids.
The dog does not get walked enough, so he’s a restless doggy,
and when we order pizza, the box is always soggy.

Pent up with our families, tempers sometimes flare.
Dad wigs out when the roof leaks, sis bemoans her frizzy hair.
Mom says that the fudge won’t set and brother is complaining
that the wifi doesn’t seem to work so well when it is raining.

We know the flowers need it, as does the reservoir.
Restrictions in water usage in the summer are a bore.
It’s true water’s a blessing. We are much in its debt,
but is there no way to get it without getting wet?

.

The FOWC challenge word today is control.

After the Ceremony

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After marriage, even after the mundane invades our life, hopefully, some of the magic remains.

After the Ceremony

Oh my dear,
caught in this star-studded cowboy boot world,
I love you more than an Oreo cookie,
more than bubble gum
or a dill pickle.
You are a full gas tank and my shoelaces.
You are both what keeps me going
and what I am reaching out for—
my goal and trophy rolled into one.
You are my ironing board and my blender—
what churns me up and straightens me out.
Everything in the world is caught up in you.

It is flowering, our ordinary world.
Zephyrus peanut butter
and turgid corned beef hash
are surrounded by rosebuds,
soaring heavenward in sartorial bliss.
The sewing machine is holy
and our Dodge truck dreamlike.
The fanciful and practical
are shuffled in our dream world
like cards at a poker table.
A washcloth and a comb soar heavenward.
Birdsong becomes a phonograph needle,
caught in its groove.
Verdant is the garden hose–
pulsating with a new vibrancy.

If I am a tax form, you are my pencil.
I am diaphanous in my kitchen apron,
a fairy in blue jeans.
I could sing an ode to your toothbrush.
If I took a measuring stick to our love,
the world’s breath would be bated,
waiting for the result.
Birdsong would issue from the teakettle
to chorus the announcement.
For oh, my love, our passion is a hammer.
A scythe that slices through the problems of the world:
the shopping lists and the crabgrass.

Love vaporizes our petty problems––
the broken dishwasher
and the broken fingernail––
I am thy bride, thy fairy princess.
Your pencil sharpener.
The trimmer of your wick,
the cooker of your sausage.

My dear, I am turgid in thy love.
You are what wrenches my heart
and nails shut the door
of every misgiving I might have had.
You are mustard to my sauerkraut,
pastrami to my rye.
Love in a Ziplock bag might seem less fairylike,
blander than white bread
and more Sunday School than magical;
but, you are my big zucchini,
my Dove bar and my Orange Crush,
and I am forever thy camellia and thy rose.

Remember me under lindens,
my footsteps filled with magnolia petals
and my cook pot full of stardust.
Heaven resides in our walkup flat, my dear,
and I pulsate every day
with the memory of that honeymoon
which was only our penultimate dream—
leading up to the chock-a-block,
stuffed turkey with all the trimmings,
overflowing Christmas stocking,
burst balloon filled with confetti,
blissful rest of that conjoined life
that with every morning alarm clock
will spill over us again
like a freshly split piñata.

This is a rewrite of a poem first written five years ago. The prompt word today was ceremony.