Tag Archives: silly poem

Ten Years Ago Today: On Pants and Fences

This is today’s look over the shoulder from Word Press: “Cracking open the content time capsule: Revisit your posts from this day, June 26.”

I chose a post I made on this date (June 26) in 2016:

Mending Wall and Mending Pants!!!

I agree that “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, ” but fences, schmences.  Although the topic today is “Fences,” I think walls are close enough to fences–just a matter of material and “I have miles to go before I sleep” thanks to packing, purchasing, organizing  and copying things I need to take to the states on Wednesday, so taking the further risk of alluding to Robert Frost three times in three sentences, I am going to avail myself of a link to an old parody of “Mending Wall” (entitled “Mending Pants”) that I wrote 2.5 years ago before most of you had even heard of my blog.  I hope you enjoy it and approve the streeeeeetttttccchhhhh of the theme for today.  Guess you could call them stretch pants???

DSC09502 IMG_1447

Robert Frost seemed to have a thing about boundary markers.  “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” and “Mending Wall” are the most notable indicators of this.  Several years ago when I had only a few faithful followers, I wrote a parody on “Mending Wall” which I’d like to share with you again.  Judging from the likes, the faithful Angloswiss was my only present follower who read it and if some of you are like me, even if you read it two and a half years ago, you probably won’t remember it, so please indulge me and go here:
 https://judydykstrabrown.com/2014/09/17/mending-pants-with-apologies-to-robert-frost/
and I’ll get on with my packing, ordering, xeroxing and house ordering for my housesitter.  Only three days to go!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/fence/

 

“Erasures Impossible” for The Three Things Challenge

Erasures Impossible–Unless

If you are writing in a jiffy,
it may be your spelling’s iffy.
So, unless it doesn’t hurt
to have to scratch out and insert,
It would be wiser, don’t you think,
to write in pencil and not in ink?

For the Three Things Challenge  the words were: INK. INSERT IFFY

Insomnia Blues

Image by Alexandra Gorn on Unsplash, Used with permission.                 

Insomnia Blues

I turn up the volume, turn off the lights–
the beginning of one of my fruitless insights
into how to manage falling asleep
by listening to podcast sessions I keep
stored on my computer, backed up on my phone,
although I admit, in the dark, all alone,

I lie sleepless for hours, in spite of trying
various things to assist in my flying
off into dreamland. Music and books,
chants, meditations and other hooks
created to lull a person to dreams,
where I will not go in this lifetime,it seems.

Hour after hour, I try to snooze.
Light up a doobie, sip on some booze,
but nothing works, so as dawn lights my day,
I arise from my bed and I’m off and away
to attend Open Circle–– a weekly gathering
given to performances, lectures and blathering
on local issues. This week it’s my friend.

I find my seat. It’s first row, on the end.
Hear announcements of upcoming speakers and then
my very best friend. I hear her begin,
then fade into dreams, beginning to snore,
lean ever lower, end up on the floor.
So that sleep I’ve been praying for comes, in the end,
rudely, in public, as I lose a friend.

Today’s Word of the Day was “Volume.”

Reluctant Guest for SOCS

Reluctant Guest

It was infatuation. He was there at my behest,
and though I hoped for more, he proved to be a slippery guest.
When I reached out for him and he escaped my grasp,
I improvised a harness out of scarf and belt and clasp.

Before you form ideas about my brashness in this tryst,
imagining the lengths that I might go to to be kissed,
I fear that you misunderstand the situation. Maybe,
I did not make it clear that I was bathing sis’s baby!

 

The Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “guest.”

Jellybelly Saturday Night

Jellybelly Saturday Night

The only right place to put jelly
is on toast and then into your belly..
Then when you are sated
and fully elated,
 go sit it in front of the telly!

for the Limerick Challenge, the prompt was Jelly

“Some Poetic Feet” for dVerse Poets Open Link Night

Malina Rose photo

Four Feet off the Ground

He loved her khaki overalls, her hiking boots and hat,
so altered his agenda to be where she was at.
He knew she was the girl for him, and though he’d never met her,
he knew at once he was in love and that he’d not forget her.
He tracked her to the lunch room, sneaking down the hall,
keeping so far behind she didn’t notice him at all.
He followed her to English class, then slipped into his own.
If it had been left up to him, she never would have known
the strength of his affection. Nor would she have met him.
She would have had no choice to remember or forget him.
From the start, he thought that she clearly walked on air
and one day without knowing it, he followed her up there.
She was two feet off the ground, and with him, it made four.
All across the campus, they were seen to soar.
But when she stopped abruptly, he simply could not miss her.
He forged ahead, bumped into her, and when she turned, he kissed her!
And though at first it seemed that she merely was astounded,
in time, they formed a pair and then they were more firmly grounded.

 

For Photo Challenge #269

For dVerse Poets Open Link Night..Some Poetic Fet!

Ode to Sugar, for the Ragtag Daily Prompt

IMG_8736

Ode to Sugar

Hey, Sugar Sugar, you’re the one for me.
I enjoy each calorie.
Smooth or frozen with chocolate on top,
washed down with a glass of pop.
Pile on the sprinkles and roll in nuts.
You’re the best, no ands or buts.
My little Sugar is smooth and dreamy.
My little Sugar chewy, creamy.

Shortbread, brownies, chocolate chip––
in my coffee, I like to dip.
But cheesecake, pie––other forms of sin––
I put on the table and dive right in.
Swim to the middle with my teeth,
see what there can be beneath
the icing or cream or chocolate sauce.
When dessert arrives, Sugar’s the boss.

Hey Sugar, Sugar, you’re the one
in snow or rain or blistering sun.
I don’t care if you’re hot or cold.
Baked Alaska is great, I’m told,
but I also like a big old cone
just piled with ice cream, all alone.
Don’t touch my Sugar, don’t you dare!!!
When it comes to Sugar, I don’t share!!!

The prompt for Ragtag Daily Prompt is “Calorie.”

“Damsels in Distress” for Word of the Day Challenge

Damsels in Distress

Each myth, legend or fairytale
from “once upon” to “fare thee well”
shares some elements of story
be they sad, uplifting, gory.

Always a damsel in distress—
Rumplestiltskin’s name to guess,
straw to spin out into gold,
or another story to be told.

Too much sleep may be her curse,
ugly stepsisters, or worse:
murder, treason, sloth and pox
emptied from Pandora’s box.

These troubles spread from near to far––
one solved by wishing on a star,
then Zeus forgave Pandora’s shame
and the imp revealed his own strange name.

But the other women described above
were saved by cleverness or love.
Scheherazade escaped the hearse
with stories, legends, tales and verse.

Cinderella rose from hearth and ashes
and Sleeping Beauty opened lashes­­––
both maids saved by daring-do:
one by a kiss, one by a shoe.

So whatever might have been their fate:
loss of child or murderous mate,
wipe tears and fears away with laughter.
They all lived happily ever after.

 

The Word of the Day Challenge prompt word is Stress. Image generated with the use of AI.

Last-Minute Menu Changes

Last-Minute Menu Changes

My ravenous cats lurk up on the roof
while my dogs all remind me in language of woof
that they’re hollow with hunger and rattled by need
of kibble and catfood to fulfill their greed
for something to fill up space found in their tummies:
chicken or beef or those jerky stick yummies.
Now the dogs rush the door in their need to be seen,
push open the glass door  and rattle the screen.
With a flicker of tail, they crash once and again
into the door screen ’til they have slipped in,
and both dogs and cats leap onto my bed,
shaming their mom, whose face has turned red
with embarrassment over the fact she forgot
to go shopping for food for the whole furry lot!
So I leap from my bed and run down the hall,
pursued by my dogs and my cats, one and all.
Run into the kitchen and throw open the door
of the fridge, then I spread out all over the floor
the food I’d intended to feed to a guest
whom I had invited with all of the rest
of his family to dine–the roast and the cheese
I had purchased because I knew it would please
all my guests–the potatoes and veggies and flan
and I watched all my animals lick every pan
until it was empty of every food scrap,
then they lay on the floor for an after-meal nap
while I wandered in and climbed into my bed
to try to decide what I’d feed instead
to those guests who’d arrive in just 4 hours more.
Then I dressed and departed to drive to the store
to buy frozen pizzas and ice cream and cake
out of which a quick meal I’d return home and make,
shooing out of the kitchen those pets now sedated
once their fierce hunger was finally  abated.
The floor now licked clean, it was one task the less
I’d have to complete. They’d cleaned up their own mess!
So I mixed up a salad and set a fine table
and completed the meal as best I was able.
Poured tequila, cooked pizza and uncorked the wine.
The guests were well-pleased and my pets lay supine
both on terrace and roof or snug in their beds
while visions of roast beef careened through their heads.
And lest you wonder, I’ll say one thing more.
I bought kibble and cat food while there at the store!

 

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 751, the prompt words are: ravenous lurked shame space found glass hollow flicker rattled slip red crash

Killer Clowns and Other Threats

 

Killer Clowns and Other Threats

Robot ghosts from outer space
are in the sky, then in your face.
They sat behind you once in school,
thinking all the world they’d fool,
but recently they have been outed,
so although formerly I doubted
action adventure’s crazy plots
of giant creatures and evil bots,
recent events most grieveable
have made such things believable.

This orange devil we’ve elected
and all the buffoons he’s collected
make killer clowns from outer space
less scary than villains we face
day by day in our own world.
So let those forces be unfurled
to fight with him both tooth and bone
so he’ll leave our innocents alone!

Hope “springs” eternal, so I’m using this farcical response to the dVerse prompt this week, no matter how farfetched!!! The hats on the guys  in the UFO are supposed to read “Make Space Great Again,” but couldn’t get AI to cooperate. They came close, so have some of the ICE agents displaying their motto instead. Perhaps they have been in cahoots all along.