Tag Archives: humorous poetry

Stoned!!!

4 Replies

Stoned

I don’t like enclosed spaces or rooms that are too small.
Elevators? Closets? Small caves?  I hate them all.
A cellar where no air moves is a place I won’t be found,
and can’t imagine spending days low beneath the ground!
I have a fear of smothering someplace where there’s no air,
so I won’t go spelunking, even on a dare.
And though I know gold jewelry’s expensive—nothing finer,
nobody would have any if I had to be the miner
who went below the ground to try to free it from the stone;
for if left up to me, I’d simply leave that gold alone.
I’ll remain above the ground in the sunshine and the breeze—
not venturing below the ground where sometimes when I sneeze,
the earth and stones might start to move and bury me alive,
streaming down around me like hornets from a hive.
So, no matter what the riches  that down there might be found,
I’ll spend my life in penury, here—above the ground!!!

The Prompt: Nightmare Job—In honor of Labor Day in North America, tell us what’s the one job you could never imagine yourself doing.

Mirror Fearer

18 Replies

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!

On Skype (After Midnight and 3 Margaritas)

9 Replies

The prompt:  Tell us about what happened the last time you were up early (or late…).

On Skype (After Midnight and 3 Margaritas)

She: maybe I need to take Frida (the Akita) to the snore doctor.
She: Perhaps she has sleep apnea. She sounds like a lion when she sleeps.
She: Have you ever heard her snore?
He: Yep.
She: Do you miss it?
He: Miss your zzzz’s
She: You miss my snores? Sweet.
She: I miss snoring for you.
He: That’s the first line of a poem.
She: I’ll write a poem starting with “I miss snoring for you,” if you will, too.
He.: I’ll try to remember to do so tomorrow.
She:
You Say You Miss My Snores

I miss snoring for you,
stepping on your shoe
when we don’t dance,
miss that glance
from your alternate self
you keep on a shelf
when you aren’t with me.
How can it be
that both of us choose
to leave our clues
in cyberspace
not face-to-face?
Alone together
with no tether,
our way
for today
perhaps forever
internetedly clever.

He: it just blows me away how you can come up with something like that, so achingly beautiful, in less than five minutes!
She: Ah. You inspire it.
He: I muse you whilst i amuse you
She: Ha. That is exactly it!
She: What you just said couldn’t have been said more succinctly or more briefly. It is the tweet
of poetry
She: sweet tweet of poetry—sweet bird of absurd

(After this, the conversation digressed.  No more shall be said.)

Update: “He” has written his version, as agreed. You can see it here.

Wise Thoughts Unsaid and Unremembered

8 Replies

Wise Thoughts Unsaid and Unremembered

The perfect reply that I hadn’t yet thought of
but figured out later? I have had a lot of;
but the problem is that now they still can’t be gotten,
for though once I had them, I now have forgotten!

It’s true.  Great retorts are jewels in the crown,
but truer that one has to write them all down!
And it’s best that you write them down lickety-splickly,
for though they come slowly, they seem to go quickly!


The Prompt:  We’ve all had exchanges where we came up with the perfect reply—ten minutes too late. Tell us what it was, being sure to sign off with your grand slam unused zinger!

My Promoter

5 Replies

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

13 Replies

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

3 Replies

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

11 Replies


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”

4 Replies

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

12 Replies


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!!)