Tag Archives: Humor

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

 

Rum Dumb

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Rum Dumb

Beer is tacky. Wine’s a joke.
My preference is Rum and Coke.
Squeeze a lime in. Take a sip
to cool your throat and wet your lip.
My favorite form of inebriation
is always Cuba Libre-ation.

The Prompt: Pick Your Potion—What’s your signature beverage — and how did it achieve that status?      http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/pick-your-potion/

Woodstock Redux Redux : The Watchers

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To understand the below poem, which was written to a prompt from okcfogottenman (who wanted me to address the subject of the broken tree limb) you need first to read my Woodstock Poem

Woodstock Redux Redux : The Watchers

Jimi and Janice sitting in a tree.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
Janice got so carried away
that the limb began to sway.
And though spirits don’t weigh much,
not so the limb that they both they clutch.
So as they vanished into vapors,
I felt the aftermath of their capers.
When the branch came crashing down,
It barely missed my fragile crown.
Lucky these greats of rock and roll
Didn’t have me as their goal.
If I’d been better at voice or guit,
that tree limb might have scored a hit,
and I’d be playing at the pearly gate
with other greats who’ve met their fate.
With tie-die halos above our hair,
We’d stage a heavenly Woodstock there!

Compulsion to Peel

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Chair labels
Compulsion to Peel

In the courtyard, the music’s fine.
Chair by chair, we sit in line.
Row on row, we listen to
the opera, a lovely stew
of mezzo, baritone, soprano,
cello, violin, piano
performing favorite opera tunes
sans the oboes and bassoons.
Yet my attention seems to be
on the back of the chair in front of me
where a label’s firmly stuck
where I can see it—just my luck!
For each thing to me revealed
that can be unstuck or peeled,
(price tags, nail polish, wrap that clings—
all things stuck to other things)
calls out to me to come and pick.
It’s a compulsion I can’t kick.
I’m mesmerized by the plastic chair
of this woman with long blonde hair.
When she turns her head, the sticker’s there.
At other times, obscured by hair.
On other chair backs, I see labels.
I’d pull them off if I were able.
Yet most are just too far away
and in my seat I have to stay.
But if that woman would swish her mane,
I’d peel this label that is the bane
of my existence for now I feel
even more compelled to peel!
The performance over, the audience claps.
In their applause there is no lapse.
They stand and catcall, stomp their feet.
That woman rises from her seat
to show her wild approbation,
and thereby ends my consternation;
for when she stands in front of me,
I grab the label and pull it free!
Quickly the audience stacks the chairs
in stacks of sixes, fours or pairs.
Polite of them, for it saves time,
but still I feel less than sublime;
for as they stack them chair on chair,
it hides the stickers still stuck there.
And really, if I had my druthers,
I’d stay and peel off all the others!

Chair label

Today’s prompt was to tell the story of a badly-timed annoyance.  Those labels stuck on the back of most of the chairs at a local gathering spot/performance center have long been an annoyance to me.  Slowly, over the years, I have been peeling them off one-by-one as they appear in front of me at various events.

“You Don’t Send Me Flowers Anymore”

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The Prompt: Secret Admirers—You return home to discover a huge flower bouquet waiting for you, no card attached. Who is it from, and why did they send it to you?

No Roses Left Inside my Gate

He didn’t leave me flowers, instead he sent a cake.
Not the smartest choice that he will ever make.
The problem was, he left it inside my compound door
where the dogs could get it.  Now it is no more!
My dogs have diarrhea and I have no dessert.
Little bits of cardboard are carpeting the dirt
and grass and bricks and tiles and every patio chair—
with every bit of frosting licked from them with care.
I cannot blame my friend for this ungodly mess.
The blame is only mine, I’m driven to confess.
My friend’s a loyal reader and I’m a foolish girl.
You’ll understand more clearly if you read this URL:
https://grieflessons.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/popsicles-and-tuberoses/

Mostly Nameless in Mexico

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The Prompt: The Name’s The Thing—Have you ever named an inanimate object? (Your car? Your laptop? The volleyball that kept you company while you were stranded in the ocean?) Share the story of at least one object with which you’re on a first-name basis.

Mostly Nameless in Mexico

Though Apple named my laptop “Mac,”
I don’t name things that don’t talk back!

(Since my prompt is longer than my poem today, hope you’ll go back and also read one of my earlier prompts.  There are 211 others posted prior to this shorty!!)

 

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!

Compulsion to Rhyme (All the Time)

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Compulsion to Rhyme
(All the Time)

You may guess there are drawbacks to writing as I do,
for lately, I must find a rhyme for everything I view.
This matching up of words that rhyme has come to be compulsion.
A harmless one, but still one sometimes met with some revulsion.
When making jokes or making bread or making whoop-de-do,
I always think of words that rhyme and then I voice a few.
So when a lover bites my neck and with my hair is toying,
and the only word that I can find to rhyme is “cloying;”
it certainly gets in the way of my successful “boying!”

Or when a good friend feeds me and under-cooks the meat,
as I run through my retinue to find a rhyme that’s neat;
and she happens to hear me just as I curse the red,
wishing she had opted for a well-done steak instead,
my sincere protestations do not seem to be accepted.
If only that one choice of rhymes had not been intercepted,
perhaps she would still ask me to her luncheons and her dinners.
Instead, I’ve wound up on her list of culinary sinners!

As much as I like rhyming, sometimes it is a curse,
for what is my best habit may also be my  worse.
If only long ago I’d learned how not to rhyme each word,
the last one in this poem would not need to be “absurd.”

The Prompt: Not Lemonade-When life gives you lemons… make something else. Tell us about a time you used an object or resolved a tricky situation in an unorthodox way.

As a writer, almost any bad situation may be improved by writing about it! It doesn’t always solve the problem, but at least something positive may be gained out of something negative. This poem makes light of this tendency, but the truth is that I almost always feel better after writing about something, no matter how it has turned out in reality.

(This post is dedicated to Laura and Mamta, who prompted it by commenting on my proclivity to rhyme. And because I cannot waste even a mediocre product, to Duckie!)

 

 

 

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.)