Tag Archives: humorous rhyme

Witches’ Brew (96 words)

29 Replies

 

Witches’ Brew

Stir the cauldron, stir it well
until its contents start to jell.
Don’t have a look or you will shiver
over gnat eyes, bat wings, liver.

A witch’s curse and zombie’s howl
season this concoction foul.
Want to have a little sip?
Bring close your tongue. Thrust out your lip

toward this putrid, icky treasure.
Here’s a spoonful for your pleasure.
Now that you’ve had a little dose,
don’t look so startled and morose.

Such behavior’s never seen
in witches’ houses on Halloween.
Put away your groans and pouts.
It’s not as bad as brussels sprouts!!!

https://susannahill.com/2018/10/27/the-8th-annual-halloweensie-contest-aahhhrrrooooooooo/

July 3, 1947

10 Replies

 

July 3, 1947

The date above is notable
for reasons that are quotable.
It marks the birth of someone who
has  brought these few words into view
to put them in her blogging queue.
(True, that is what all bloggers do.)

But if there is a blogging heaven,
four thousand one hundred fifty-seven
might certainly be in the running
for snapshotting, rhyming and punning—
all those things we bloggers do
to try to get a rise from you.

In fact, in numbers I’ve been sparing
in how my blog count has been faring.
Blogs four thousand one-fifty-nine
are the numbers I claim as mine
for former blog posts that are done.
The next will end in sixty-one!

With sixty, alas, nothing rhymes
and so it is the least of crimes
that I don’t quote it as a score.
A small malfeasance, nothing more.
As poems go, this is not the best,
so please just rate me by the rest!

 

The prompt today is notable.

No Longer in the Present

13 Replies

jdbphoto

No Longer in the Present

Seated around the table in our favorite cafe,
attention to each other has come to be passé
We are not present here and now. We’re all in other places
as we stare at tiny screens, intent on other faces.

The friends we have around us will simply have to wait
for our interest in the world-at-large to finally abate.
The news that’s happening elsewhere is simply more amusing
than what might be happening in this space our body’s using.

Other friends are funnier in their “selfie” poses—
pooching out their lips at us and scrunching up their noses.
It won’t do to look natural, we have to look unique
in the selfsame pose that all selfie-flashers seek.

So if your friends are boring, not half so chic as you,
you always have the option to make a Tweet or two.
Check out the latest fashions available from China.
They’ll only take three months to reach you here in Carolina.

Check out the weather in Tibet and give YouTube a glance.
Companions won’t distract you if you don’t give them a chance.
Living one life at a time no longer has to do
so long as you remember to have your phone with you!

So if you’ve dropped a French fry and spilled ketchup down your dress,
you needn’t be embarrassed. It couldn’t matter less.
Intent on Twitter, Instagram, Facetiming and Facebooking,
the friends with you won’t notice, for nobody is looking.

The prompt word is present.

Return of the Pelicans

16 Replies

I’ve been at the beach for three weeks now and seen nary a pelican.  Magnificent frigate birds we’ve seen in abundance, but no pelicans.  Then, when I finished writing my blog early this morning, a mysterious unsigned message appeared as a comment: 
“The peligans are back.”  Spelling aside, I ran out to see the scene shown below—banks of pelicans soaring in, others resting on the waves, others on the offshore rock and moored boats and floats.  You might guess that a poem evolved.  You’d be right. Photos follow.

Return of the Pelicans

The pelicans come soaring in, completely at their ease
to settle on the empty waves wherever they may please.
They do not ask permission after being gone so long.
They don’t amuse with antics. They do not offer song.
We do not know where pelicans have kept themselves for weeks
when we were looking for them, taking furtive peeks
outside our doors, off terraces, and from our cafe chairs.
We missed their stretched-out funny bills. We missed their derrieres.

We have missed their diving prowess and their flying in a chain.
We missed their grumpy countenances. Missed their bland disdain.
So now that they are back with us, perching on our boats,
messing up our launches, defiling our floats,
we’d like to issue them a welcome, but they do not like the fuss.
It puzzles them, because they feel ambivalent towards us!

Click on any photo to enlarge all.

The Inkling

11 Replies

IMG_0107

The Inkling

I haven’t an inkling what I ought to do
about that weird spot on the tongue of my shoe.
Don’t know how it got there, don’t know what its made of.
And such a strange color! I don’t know the shade of
odd pigment that it might be properly called—
somewhere between baby pig and grandpa-bald?

What color is pink to end up on your shoe?
With pink on his toe, what’s a fellow to do?
If there were a shoe wash, I’d go in a blink,
but since there is no sort of place, then the sink
is the place I will go to to wash off this matter—
this slimy soft substance that looks like a batter.

You may think I’m silly to make such a fuss,
to blather and worry and mumble and cuss,
but these shoes are brand new and my favorites, at that—
undeserving of refuse left by the cat.
Now the cat’s in the barn and the shoe is restored.
Almost. Must that shadow just be ignored?

I’ve dined out on this story ’till friends are all bored.
As they approach me, I hear them say, “Lord,
protect us from more boring talk of his shoe.
Please let him not mention that gloppy pink goo.”
They may call me a heel, these folks I’m among
as I tell them once more how the cat got my tongue.

But I can’t abandon those images that
that mess on my shoe was left by the cat.
On what innocent creature might she have dined—
its tiny pink corpse so sadly reclined
on the tongue of my perfectly saddle-soaped shoe?
My friends will not listen, so I’m telling you!!

 

The prompt today was inkling.

 

Play Break

7 Replies

 

DSC00161

Play Break

See how the young dog darts and nips
at the old dog’s neck and hips?
Anxious on this glorious day
to jump and scamper, tease and play.

With one year only to his name,
his entire life’s a game.
The older dog, his conquests made,
calmly commandeers the shade.

Winded, panting, tired, sore,
he lies there for five minutes more,
then springs to life, ready again
to be the dog he was back when.

 

Candy Crush

9 Replies

Okay, Forgottenman is making me post this story I just told him.

Remember a few months ago when I wrote the poem making use of the names of candy bars and different sorts of candy?  Actually, one of the musicians at Open Mike has set it to music, but before that, I just read it as a poem at Open Mike.  Tonight I went back and read three other poems, and afterwards a woman came up to me and said,  “Remember when you read the poem about candy bars and I asked for a copy and you gave me yours?” I said yes and she continued. “Well, I went back to Canada and threw a party based on it. I filled a bowl with as many of the candies as I could find, then read the poem and whenever someone heard the name of a type of candy and was the first to raise their hand, they got to go to the bowl and take that candy bar or type of candy.” She said, “People loved it but said I didn’t read with enough feeling, so they made me read it again with feeling!” She was so excited to tell me this. Cool, huh?

Here is the candy bar poem:

The Ballad of Henry and Ruth

Before she met him at the candy store,
her days were empty and her life was a bore;
but when he offered her his Jujyfruits,
in just a moment they were in cahoots.
He was the drummer in a R&R band.
Down all 5th Avenue, he held her hand.
She felt his pulse beat pump a sweet love tune
and knew he’d be her Sugar Daddy soon.

Chorus:

Yes she met him at the candy store,
between the sucker rack and front screen door.
He nearly tripped over her Mary Janes
and crashed into a rack of Candy Canes.
The Double Bubble and the Tootsie Roll Pops
collided with the mints and lemon drops.
Their love was written in the moon and stars,
but realized beneath the Hershey Bars!


Oh Henry, she was crooning, and much more.
He loved this Bit O’ Honey down to the core.
Shifted his Firestick and they went for a ride
his Baby Ruth snuggled right up to his side.
She cried, “Oh, Henry!” as they hit the Mounds,
poppin’ wheelies as they did the rounds.
He was no Slo-Poke, tell you here and now,
so as he swerved to miss a big Black Cow,


The car rolled over on its Rollo Bars
crashing into six  more hot rod cars.
“Atomic Fireball” said the words on his car.
Now how appropriate those two words are.
100 Grand it costs him on Payday
so he’ll be working every night and day—
his Red Hot mama working by his side,
for now his Sweet Tart is his blushing bride.


Repeat Chorus:

 

To enjoy the candy in more detail, click on any photo.

Sharing Mr. Teddy

16 Replies

 

image from internet                              

Sharing Mr. Teddy 

Caught in baby’s neck creases, clinging to Grandpa’s cuff,
escaped from Mr. Teddy are these little bits of fluff.
These airborne little clumps of fuzz go anywhere they please.
They catch in Daddy’s nose hairs, causing him to sneeze.
They wind up in the pancakes–an artistic swirl of blue.
A few of them are tracked outside under Billy’s shoe.
When he climbs onto the school bus, they go along with him,
and everywhere that Mommy goes, to grocery store or gym,
a piece of Teddy comes along to be left behind
somewhere in the wide wide world, but he doesn’t mind.
He has so many fluffy parts that he can share a few.
And when you come to visit, you can take some home with you!!

The prompt today was fluff.

 

Unscheduled Visitor

12 Replies

 

Unscheduled Visitor

I hear a rapid rapping and I’m wondering, “Who is it?”
It’s too early in the morning for a casual drop-in visit.
I’m still in my pajamas and the dogs and cats aren’t fed.
How can company be calling while I’m still here in bed?

The knocking is insistent but I have no way to spy
upon whatever passer-by refuses to pass by.
My intercom is broken, so I call out from the door,
“Who is it?” but it’s obvious they aren’t there anymore.

I wander back to bed again, feeling somewhat tense.
Only when I’m sleeping does the knocking recommence.
“Who is it?” I scream out again, accenting every vowel.
The dogs sense my frustration and they begin to howl.

My bedroom sliders are open, so my voice soars over the wall.
Any passerby could hear if they could hear at all.
But still nobody answers. This Saturday morning’s still.
There are no other noises up here on my hill.

No car horns and no dog barks. No children’s noisy play.
No birdcalls. No construction to mar this quiet day.
Except for my invectives as the rappings start again—
louder, oh much louder than they have ever been.

As I charge out of my front door, I grab for an umbrella—
in case I need a weapon to fight off some unknown fella
intent on ruining my day, but when I turn the key
and open wide my front wall gate, there’s no one there but me!

I roar in my frustration. The whole town must hear my wails.
I throw that damn umbrella. Over the wall it sails.
I stalk back to my room and pull the covers over my head,
praying for more silence, but what I get instead

is the steady rat-tat-tatting that now upon reflection
seems to emanate from a different direction.
I draw aside my bedroom drapes and wonder, “What the heck?”
sweeping my sight across my yard, I finally crane my neck

and see it far up in a palm—an industrious woodpecker
whose ruthless drilling is the thing that’s been my sleep-in wrecker!
I cannot throw a shoe at him for I can’t throw that far.
If I tried to knock a golf ball up, I’d be far over par.

At last I view with humor this ridiculous affair,
and so I pull on Levis and smooth my ruffled hair.
I shuffle off to feed the dogs, the kittens and the cat
and just accept as music this rat-a-tat-tat-tat.

 

The prompt today is casual.

Prattle Practice

10 Replies

DSC09337Whenever my older sister’s friend Karen came over to spend the night with her, she’d bring her Bonnie Braids doll to sleep with me.  It kept me out of their hair and gave me someone to talk to.  Perhaps it established a precedent? When I went to visit her in Minneapolis 60 years later, she still had Bonnie.  Here, we reminisce. She still lets me do all the talking.

Prattle Practice

I don’t have any roommates since I lost my spouse,
so I chew the fat with animals and objects in my house.
“How did you get way over there?” I mumble to a spoon.
I converse with my potted plants, complete with off-key tune.
Sometimes I jolt myself awake, talking in my dreams.
What I have to say at least I want to hear, it seems.
I’ve had a conversation with the sidewalk, face-to-face.
I’ll have another talk with it once they remove this brace.

I hold my kittens in a trance by talking in their ears,
and though they do not answer in the manner of my peers,
they have their personal language of meows and purrs and squeaks.
While I speak back in high-pitched tones like baby talk for freaks!
I hope the neighbors have not heard as I advise the trees
 to only shed their debris on their own lawns, if they please. 
I sometimes gripe to flowers that they are too soon dying
and to potatoes in the pan that are too slowly frying.

I grumble to my router and cold water from the tap.
Soundly, I upbraid them in my own domestic rap.
I talk to nestlings from below as they cheep from their nest,
but, dive-bombed by the mother bird, I give our chat a rest.
When I prattle to the furniture, the cook pots and the cactus
in lieu of human company, in fact it is just practice.
All my other blatherings just keep me there on track
for when I meet with human folks who no doubt will talk back!

 

Don’t know where else this photo of the Bonnie/Judy reunion would ever fit in so here it goes into fun photos, along with the poem I wrote to go with it.