Category Archives: Silly poems

Dear Genie (A Note Affixed to a Bottle)

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Dear Genie  (A note Affixed to a Bottle)

Get back into the bottle. You’re doing nothing right.
The Adonis I requested just the other night
turned out to be the plumber. He got here around nine,
but the pipes he chose to work on were not any pipes of mine.
A problem with your hearing is a possibility,
so for now there’s only one more wish that I would ask of thee.
A doctor of ear, nose and throat you need to visit, please,
for when I requested money, you brought me hives of bees.
Now I’ve sufficient honey and beeswax it appears—
almost as much as I imagine you have in your ears.
As it is, each thing I wish for occasions my new fears.
So you’re confined to quarters ’til your hearing reappears!


The prompt today is genie.

A Dreaming Vocabulary: NaPoWriMo, Apr 14, 2018

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A Dreaming Vocabulary

When you’re sleeping soundly in your nightie or pajammers
and you happen to be dreaming of teacups, sharks and hammers,
if the hammer pounds the teacup, spilling tea and cream
to soak the wobbly table that is also in your dream,
you might think good fortune has cruelly run out,
but that still does not explain what the shark’s about.

A dentist in a rowboat comes rowing quickly by.
He fixes that circling shark securely with his eye,
grabs him in a deadlock and pulls him o’er the side,
doses him with novocaine, then just drifts with the tide
as he extracts the teeth that he might use to chew
on anything that he encounters: fish or squid or you!

And just as he is finishing this grisly operation,
the shark begins a session of intense regurgitation.
First a full-grown seagull, then a pink silk ballet slipper
with the ballet dancer still attached, alive but not too chipper.
The shark is still recovering so toothless and so numb it
knows not that if it wants a meal, hereafter, it must gum it.

The whole group now returns to shore. The dancer dances off.
The seagull sits in shock and the shark begins to cough.
A mariachi hits the sand, complete with his guitar.
All of them a bit in shock, wondering where they are.
And to you, caught there  in dreamland, what message does this send?
Perhaps, my dear,  that everything comes out right in the end!

 

The Day 14 prompt is: Pick one (or more) of the following words, and write about what it means to dream of these things: Teacup, Hammer, Seagull, Ballet slipper, Shark, Wobbly table, Dentist, Rowboat.

Incandescent Insect Insomnia

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photo from the internet                          

Both the Mills Brothers and Dean Martin recorded the song “Glow Worm” whose lyrics and tune I loved as a little girl. WordPress wouldn’t let me download the song from Youtube, but  please find it yourself and listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaBDPNKgj9A. Then don’t forget to come back for my reply:

Incandescent Insect Insomnia

When nature made the  glow worm glimmer,
would that she’d installed a dimmer;
for when I put out the light,
what I expect is total night.

When it puts itself in action,
I fear it sets up a distraction.
Little glow worm on the shelf,
please keep your glowing to yourself.

The prompt today is glimmer.

A Watched Pot: NaPoWriMo 2018, Friday the 13th.

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A Botched Pot 
Why does a watched pot never boil?
A failure to ignite the coil?
Failure to put the water in?
That’s how such pithy sayings begin.
Their logic, though, I fear is thin
when they say watching is the sin.
He who tries to pass the buck
by quoting this is out of luck.
His gig is up. He’s surely caught.
‘Twas inattention botched the pot.

The NaPoWriMo prompt today:  write a poem in which the words or meaning of a familiar phrase get up-ended.

Loving Thy Enemy

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Three years ago yesterday, I wrote an abecedarian poem for NaPoWriMo that contained today’s pompt word of “froth.”  What are the chances?  There must be some poetic synchronicity at work here.  If you don’t know what an abecedarian poem is, it is one where each word in the poem begins with a letter of the alphabet in order from a to z.  I did one poem in this manner, then wrote another  where I stated with z and went backwards through the alphabet to a, and then forward again, a to z. Give me any kind of game and I can’t resist it.  Especially word games.

 

Loving Thy Enemy

Age
becomes
creative.

Don’t ever fictionalize
great heroic intimacies.

Just keep looking
major nemeses over,
proudly quieting
rash stabbing thoughts.

Under violent words,
xenophobic
yearnings
zing.

****

Raw Savage Thoughts

Zealous young
xenophobic wanderers
veer under
the sun’s rays,
quitting promenades
over nomadic mesas.

Let’s keep jumping
into harsh green fields,
eternally delving closer
before age accents
belligerent crankiness.

Delicious effervescence
froths gushingly homeward
in jugulars,
keeping lymphatic matters
normal or palpitating,

quickening
raw savage thoughts.
Understanding vulcanizes
woman’s X-rated,
yearnful zest.

 

The prompt today is froth.

The Forgottenman Challenge. Done!!

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After seeing my mixed bouquet in Cee’s daily flower challenge, Forgottenman challenged me to write a poem making use of the name of every flower in the bouquet.  Okay F-man, here it is. I rise to every challenge!!! (The names of the flowers in the bouquet are in bold print.)

Zinnia was the fairest maid the town had ever grown.
She flirted with the mill boy and claimed him as her own.
She rose and fed their baby with a silver spoon
each morning as her husband lay abed ’til noon.
To wake him up, she lay their child well within his reaches.
He woke to that sweet baby’s breath-—just redolent of peaches.
Brushing off her flour-dusted lover, Zinnia sent him on his way
to grind more grain for townsfolk who had the means to pay,
for although her dusty miller was not the working kind,
true love will not buy Gerbers nor diaper a behind.

Here is the bouquet again:

IMG_7727

Bouquet of zinnias, roses, baby’s breath, dusty miller, Gerber daisies.  jdb photo

Another response to Cee’s daily flower prompt.

Almost Ready to Stand-in

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Almost Ready to Stand-in

If I had a bit more moxie,
I’d be Kardashian by proxy.
I’d be less studious, more frocksie
and trade these garments long and boxy
for a mini dress that’s foxy,
wear heels less Oxfordy and soxy,
hang out with girls named Tess or Roxie,
more cool and definitely less poxy.
I’d be a cockette of the walksie!

 

 

The prompt today is proxy.

You Can Have All the Oranges

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You Can Have All the Oranges

Pink’s been reserved for babies. Black and blue are much abused.
You need only look at nature to see green’s been overused.
You would not like the fuchsia, it is gaudy and distracting.
And yellow’s like an ingenue who’s been caught overacting.
White’s not really there at all and scarlet is too flashy.
Tan can be depressing. Gold lamé is simply trashy.
Silver strands among the gold by some are found distressing.
Flesh a color that’s best seen only while undressing.
Gray is simply nondescript. It looks like white that’s dirty,
and day-glo colors best reserved for people under thirty.
Deep purple is too moody and mauve is also glum,
as are other purples like heather, puce and plum.
Taupe’s a mousy color—too boring to be worn,
and gold they’re holding in reserve for bankers (and for corn.)
But you can have the oranges from tangerine to peach—
all the tints and shades and tones that are within your reach.
Pluck oranges from the color tree a dozen at a time.
I’ve no use for a color that has no words that rhyme.

This silly poem came about as a result of a family story much-told.  When my mother and father made a trip to Appalachia, they were waiting at a train station and saw a woman with a number of children. One little boy was especially fussy and kept pulling at a lumpy and heavy-looking bag that his mother was carrying in the arm that wasn’t holding the baby.  The train was pulling into the station and that little boy was balking and holding up their progress toward the train platform when the mother called out to him in a harried voice, “You can have all the ahr-anges you wants when you git on the train!”  It has been a much-used family saying ever since, especially useful when someone is holding up the act!
My ending line actually came about as I was trying to find a word to rhyme with orange and realized there weren’t any.  I believe it is somewhat famous for this fact.  Well, that and the sunset!

 And koolkosherkitchen brought this other “orange” poem from two years ago to my attention as well: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/03/22/hue-bris/

The prompt word today was orange.

“My” Day

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The prompt today is willy-nilly.  Now, what would you say the chances would be that I’d have written a poem that already contained that word?  If you are thinking practically nil, then you are WRONG!  Not only did I write a poem containing “willy-nilly” over two years ago, but it is even in the title. The assignment then was to talk about a holiday created in my honor and to describe it all—music, refreshments, decorations and who would come.  Here it is, warts and all:

A Holiday Most Willy-Nilly 

My namesake day would be a dilly.
Simply not run-of-the-milly.
For the concert, I’d have  Willie
and resurrect Milli Vanilli.
Kind of music? Rock-a-Billy.
For refreshments, I’d serve Chili.
Though the terrain would be most hilly,
they’d travel over rock-and-rilly
for races of both stud and filly,
and poets, fleet of tongue and quilly,
reading poems both sage and silly.

Call to Arms

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Things That Cling


Call to Arms

Sweaters do it, slips do it.
Even crackers and clam dips do it.
Let’s do it. I want to cling!!!

Saran wrap was made for it.
Lonely hearts first lust then fade for it.
Just put your arms in a ring.

Hold me and squeeze with them.
I’m the thing that you should seize with them.
Want all the hugs you can bring.

Monkeys in trees do it,
pointer fingers when you sneeze do it.
Let’s do it. Let’s do that thing.

Don’t hesitate o’er it.
Gotta tell you that I adore it.
Let’s do it.  Let’s have a fling!!!

The prompt word today is “cling.”