Tag Archives: silly poem

Out-Joked for SOCS

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BACK GARDEN1

Out-joked

Everyone must know a joker––
plotter, trickster, laugh-provoker
who doesn’t know quite when to stop.
Who needs, in fact, a humor cop
to tell him when he’s done enough––
pulled his ultimate ruse or bluff.

The dribble glass, the rubber poop
placed upon your house’s stoop?
Definitely adolescent
if not actually prepubescent.
Yet still this buffoon thinks he’s funny.
With lists of jokes, he’s over-punny.

Every occasion, every rumor
is met by him with off-base humor.
It’s his role to create sensation
in the most serious conversation.
Exploding cigars, salty gum,
whoopee cushions ‘neath your bum.

No matter how you beg this friend
to bring these antics to their end,
he never seems to listen to
what he’s requested to “not” do.
so when he streaked my garden party,
elegant, refined and arty,

he finally found himself undone
when he’d half-completed his naked run.
Dear friend, when you chose where you stepped,
you should have veered or should have leapt.
When he replaced your rubber poo,
my dog just pulled a joke on you!

 

The SOCS prompt is “Joke.”

Cleanup Crew for SOCS

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Not dead..just stuffed full and taking a rest.

Cleanup Crew

They eke their living out of our scraps
purloined while we are taking naps
or out for walks or just aren’t looking––
so intent upon our cooking
that we fail to see them scamper
(from where they hide behind the hamper)
out to gather crumbs they seek.
But instead, they prompt an “Eek”
as Mom goes one way, they the other
off to find, they hope, another
kitchen where the cook’s more willing
to ignore their needs for filling
rodent jaws and rodent tummies
with some errant human yummies.

The SOCS prompt is eek/eke

“Wordless” for Word of the Day.

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Wordless

I wish that I could wow you with putting prompts to rhyme,
but I seem not to be able to do so at this time.
“Amplify’s” been silenced and refuses to fight back,
while its potential author is revealed as just a hack.

It seems my old acuity at making words behave
has somehow deserted me, branding me a knave.
The truth that I am lacking in *vocabular agility
has left me slightly flummoxed with a new vulnerability.

(*For all I know, some lexicographer’s already dissed
my coinage of a brand new word the dictionaries missed.)
This poet, once ferocious, has been worn down by time.
and I’m thinking in my next life I might come back as a mime.

The Word of the Day prompt is:  “Amplify.”

Minds Like Mine, for The Sunday Whirl, Sept 14, 2025

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Minds
like mine
are bound to
slip away into the
swells, blown away
through cracks in time
to  where a poem dwells.
Fans of verse   may lure me
into sitting on a  fence picking
bones of words that together make
no sense. I sort them into towers, then
grasp more words to  build trapped words
in frosted pyramids with messages well-chilled.

The Sunday Whirl words are: bound slip swells fan luring fence cracks bone tower frosted trap grasps

The photo, taken by me, is of a snow-covered venting volcano.

“Deer Ones”

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Arising early, I stumbled upon this poem, “Table for One, Please” by Bartholomew Barker. That led to reading more of his poems, including THIS ONE at BeatnikCowboy.com. Have a look at it, but please come back to hear my reply. I was so impressed that he knew a herd of deer could be called a “parcel,” but then it occurred to me that perhaps he was just being poetically inventive, so I had to research the matter and in doing so, found this list of synonyms for “herd,” as it applies to deer:

In most situations, you can refer to a group of animals like deer simply as a “herd”. A herd of deer is probably the most common way to designate them, but it is most assuredly the most boring. To be more deer-specific, the other ways to refer to a group of deer include a bevy, a rangale, a bunch, or a parcel. When using parcel, however, it’s generally going to refer to a group of only young deer.

And that new knowledge led, unfortunately, to this hair-splitting and corny rhymed poem on my part:

Deer Ones

A “herd” is most commonly what you will hear
folks  calling a grouping of two or more deer;
but if you’re a poet in need of a rhyme,
perhaps you’ll use “bevy” some of the time.
Which is just as correct, though granted, more rare
to describe groups of deer that are more than a pair.
But if you need a rhyme for deer in a dale,
you just might prefer to use a “rangale,”
which is also proper—or perhaps a “bunch,”
to label a deer herd gathered for lunch
in field or in forest, munching on leaves
or grass, twigs or acorns—or crops left when sieves
abandon their fields of soybeans or corn
leaving some crops abandoned, forlorn.
But if you use “parcel” to call deer among
deer of their ilk—that’s just deer who are young!

“Toast” for SOCS (Here’s to the Bride) Aug 29, 2025

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Here’s To The Bride

The groom’s family was titled and a bit anachronistic.
So when they saw the bride, I fear they went a bit ballistic.
Instead of white she wore a dress of scarlet oddly draped.
The mother of the groom grew faint. Her husband merely gaped.
She wore something archaic instead of merely old—
her grandma’s feather boa—a bridal statement bold.
Around her neck, a python, and her arms were densely bangled.
Her veil pinned to a tractor hat of satin, oddly-angled.
The brim turned back as though she were an umpire at a game.
In short, the bride’s ensemble was anything but lame.

As she hip-hopped down the aisle to a tune by Kanye West,
the groom stood fondly watching her in morning coat and vest.
Her lipstick blue, her bustier was borrowed and conditional
on return to its owner in a manner most traditional.
To complete her fashion statement, her combat boots were blue,
and if you’ve paid attention, you could guess that they were new!
Her bouquet was fresh dandelions bound up with some chives.
She held it in one hand and with the other, gave high fives
to friends all up the aisle as she jerked her way on by.
The groom’s mom gave a shudder and his father gave a sigh.

So did this modern wedding  forsake the antiquated
with customs much less stuffy, less predictable and dated.
The wedding fare was tacos, Cuban sandwiches and chips,
jelly beans and donuts, crudités and dips.
No caviar or salmon. Just ribs and Tater Tots.
The toasts to bride and groom were made with Jello shots.
The wedding cake was chocolate with custard between layers.
Good wishes voiced by ministers, gurus and namaste’ers.
In place of rice the bride and groom were showered with quinoa.
In short, it was a wedding to rival mardi gras!

The SOCS prompt is “toast.”

First Flight Jitters, for the Sunday Whirl Wordle 720, Aug 24, 2025

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First Flight Jitters

He lingers on the runway, doing a little dance
as though he has a virus living in his pants.
Bounds right up the plane steps, wishing they were shorter,
reaches in his pocket and tips the stew a quarter.
Rugged he-man that he is, he cannot veil his terror
over the coming takeoff, for he is is no brave wayfarer.
He quavers as he finds his seat, hoping that it’s right.
Notes its number on his ticket , listed just under his flight.
His fear of flying preys on him, his hands and shoulders shaking.
The papers in his suit pocket are rustling with his quaking.
When the plane lifts off the ground, he fears that he is dying.
The next time, he will take a train. No more will he be flying,

 

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle the prompt words are: virus dance name note lingers runway rugged quaver paper prey veil wish

For the Word of the Day Challenge, Aug 19, 2025

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Career Hubris

Her hems are crooked, her seams all puff,
and if that is not enough,
her fabric’s cheap, her colors clash.
So though her duds cost lots of cash
(because she calls it haute couture)
I fear she is an amateur.

For the Word of the Day challenge, the prompt is “Amateur.”

For SOCS toes or tows prompt

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Juxtaposition

Artistic types must juxtapose
these to these and those to those
just for the contrast, I suppose.
Somehow, each artist simply knows
to vary hues that they impose
upon the subjects that they chose
to depict from head to toes.

Poets may likewise words oppose,
and so may writers given to prose.
Composers also juxtapose
in sonatas or do si dos
whatever music sweetly flows
from saxophone, fiddle or Bose.

Shoulder to shoulder, nose to nose
such contrasts form the undertows
that draw attention, lift our lows
stir lethargy and banish woes.

As all these contrasts come to blows,
so our imagination grows.
Time enough to nap and doze
when life draws nearer to its close.
For now, stay open  to the shows
of all who seek to juxtapose.

Prompts for this week’s SOCS are toe and/or tow. I used them both…and a few other “ose, oes and ows” as well.

“A Bone to Pick––Versed Versus VerSED” Prompt from Forgottenman, July 31, 2025

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Yesterday, I phoned Forgottenman from my bed in the frigid prep room of the hospital I’d gone to in Phoenix for a bone marrow biopsy and told him that although I’d be conscious during this operation that two years ago I’d had done fully-sedated and unconscious, that this time I’d just be administered a weak dose of Versed and Fentanyl to relieve anxiety. He of course did his usual “thing” and researched both of the drugs thoroughly, and when I got back to my sister’s house after this 5-hour process–most of it spent in registration, waiting and preparation–I found the blog you will read below drafted in my blog, along with a challenge that I answer it.  The following section in italics is his. My response to him in bold print is below it:

Not sure you’ll recall my mention of this with all the twilight drugs you are/were on, but somehow, “Versed Versus VerSED” sounds like some first-year Latin student was trying to convert “Veni Vidi Vici” to a past participle (or some such grammar thingie) like “I will have come, I will have seen, I will have conquered.” I had to look it up, and in case you don’t know what it is either, here’s a definition from Wikipedia of the drug VerSED. 

And although I had texted him after the operation, describing it, I hadn’t seen his above draft in my blog, which he suggested I answer. Here is my response to Forgottenman’s above posting:

Versed in VerSED

Now that you’ve read
my text A to Zed,
of that place I’ve been led
by the reins of this med
that I have been fed
through a tubular thread
meant to remove a dread
that had long gone unsaid,
have you “got” what I said?
Fears have been put to bed
in my well-VerSED head!

In short, it was not at all as bad as I suspected.  After the initial insertion of the needle, the only way I can describe it was a sensation for a minute or two of someone sipping something with sharp edges up out of my bone through a soda straw. 

Sorry for this rather contrived poem. I simply cannot turn down a challenge and it was the best I could do, given my own nature. Too late to blame it on the drugs!