Tag Archives: silly poem

A Cautionary Tale

A Cautionary Tale

I’m held spellbound by your plan. It is ingenious for sure.
You might be a benefactor and your motives may be pure,
but still you are a diplomat and know your way around
all of the maneuverings that daily may be found

in politics and daily life and so I wonder why
the minute that I said I’d sell, you made an offer to buy.
Is it, as you say, because you know I need the cash,
or are your motives otherwise and have I been too rash

in leaping at your offer? Perhaps I’ll look around
and see if there’s a better deal waiting to be found.
Conspiracies are floating ’round. I hear there is an air full.
In politics and real estate, you cannot be too careful.

 

Prompt words today are spellbound, why, benefactor, ingenious, diplomatic. Image by Maria Lin Kim Luhn on Unsplash

Pro or Con?

Pro or Con?

Sternutation means to sneeze—
(to create a noisy breeze)
but no one knows what perturbation
might be set off by a  sternation.
Could it be the sternum’s action
when it raises in reaction
caused by the excessive sneezing,
coughing, sputtering and wheezing
brought on by the summer gusts
that stir up pollen, raise up dust?

At the height of of last year’s forum
where we barely drew a quorum,
we discussed the summer pollen
that had lately daily fallen.
Prodigals returning home
bemoaned the flower bits and loam
raised into the gusty air
that stripped the flowers and pathways bare.

It’s true folks stare when you are sneezing,
but perhaps you find this pleasing.
If raised sternums cause sternation,
causing your lungs full dilation,
perhaps it is good for you
to rid your lungs of dust and goo.
So tell me, when you’re on vacation,
Are you pro or consternation?

Prompt words today are forum, height, stare, prodigal, summer and consternation.

Flipped

Flipped

Do you feel a bit off-kilter,
like your life has lost its filter,
friends are either crass or boring,
same old stories leave you snoring,
news from north, east, west and south
has you foaming at the mouth?

What politicians have to say
more like folklore every day?
The world more than you can abide
now that our heroes all have died?
How do you sift the lies from fact—
determine how you should react?

Ladies and gents, I have to say
that I do not know the way
to save a world that’s in a pickle.
Best that we just toss a nickel
and see what way the flipped coin goes.
Heads are yesses, tails are noes!!!!

Prompt words today are filter, boring, foaming, react, folklore and lady. Image from Unsplash.

Absent Hearted, Feb 14, 2023

Absent Hearted

On the shirt tails of Christmas and the dregs of New Year’s Eve,
comes a celebration only the most naive
dare to overlook and refuse to celebrate
by offering a valentine and/or a special date
with sentimental offerings—a heart-shaped box of candy.
(Jewelry or even a small bouquet is dandy.)

I advise you take my wise advice and that you beware.
If you do not mind me and sit there in your chair
viewing reruns on TV and do not heed my warning,
take me at my word. You will be punished in the morning.
Your breakfast will be cold.  Also, your spouse’s shoulder
will, without a doubt, be forty degrees colder!

Prompt words today are celebrate, punish, dregs, sentimental, chair.  Images all from Unsplash.

Creative Process

Creative Process

With 4/5ths of my life now in the past,
I am trying to pen some thoughts that will last.
I tackle the prompt words and as they pop by,
off of the screen and into my eye,
they proceed past the junction of optic nerve and brain,
link couplings and thereby become a word train.

As they leave my brain and into my fingers,
almost in seconds, not one of them lingers.
They rush past my fingers and onto the screen
where they’re determined to finally be seen.
Was I their author? Don’t be absurd.
This poem was merely writ by the word!!!

Prompts today are tackle, high, junction, past,  (Two fewer than usual, as two of the prompts had not been posted by the time I started writing this.) Photo by Clarissa Watson on Unsplash

Re-Generation, Wordle 592

Re-Generation

Once I realized culture owned me, still I had no will to change,
for alternate modes of living are so hard to arrange.
Yet I set out to mold me to be different from the crowd
and I have done so well at it that I admit I’m proud.

First I got a nose ring and then I got tattooed.
I push my way up to the front where formerly I queued.
Whereas once I used the phrase that “You’re so very very,”
I finally invested in the Urban Dictionary.

So while I was once “with it,” now finally I’m so “dope,”
that this former Boomer will soon be Gen Z, I hope.
I regret all those years when I pressed front seams in my jeans,
but now that I have shredded them, I feel I’m in my teens.

Now that I’m a “meme”ing master and Snap Chat is a snap,
I’m expert in my dissing and I’ve reversed my cap.
Now that I have changed so much,  I feel I’m at my best
in becoming different exactly like the rest!!

 

For the Sunday Whirl 592 the prompt words are: culture realized owned first proud change me here dictionary

 

Please Pass the Potatoes: Feb 11, 2023

Please Pass the Potatoes

I’m not feeling spiritual and grace goes on too long.
It’s been at least ten minutes since I heard the dinner gong.
Six hours have now passed away since I imbibed in lunch.
Six hours since I had a chance to bite and chew and munch.

If they have fresh rolls, I swear that I could use a dozen.
That’s eleven just for me and one more for my cousin.
I trust that you won’t think this poem implies that I’m a glutton.
I don’t eat fish or mushrooms, rabbit, lamb or mutton.

So it isn’t true that I eat everything I see.
I just partake in food that I know agrees with me.
Cupcakes yes. Caviar no. Tripe I’ll give a miss.
Hearts and brains and liver are dishes that I diss.

I love hot dogs and hamburgers and gravy on potatoes,
but spinach does not thrill me. Nor do turnips nor tomatoes.
But if pot pies are what they’re serving now that grace is finally through,
I admit that I could do away with one or two.

Prompts today are trust, lunch, spiritual, imply, dozen,

 

Neighborhood Security

Neighborhood Security

The siblings from Hell bike over the hill,
ravage my apple tree and eat their fill.
Pernicious young visitors—prophets of doom,
they deadhead my flowers, purloin their perfume.

I postulate ways that I may be rid
of each malevolent disastrous kid,
but threats don’t deter them and their parents don’t care.
They’re just grateful these Hellions are out of their hair.

Should I kill them with kindness? Prepare them ice creams?
Bake them a pizza that’s the stuff of their dreams?
Buy them new toys or enfold them in arms
that have forgiven their previous harms?

Would this turn them loving and mindful and meek?
Will it work if I turn that proverbial cheek?
Or should I turn the dogs out to drive them away?
Lock all my doors and again hit the hay?

It’s six in the morning. I could use some more sleep.
They are such bratty kids. My resentment runs deep.
So I walk down the hall and open the gate,
release my Great Danes and thus seal their fate.

They’ll pursue them with vigor and though they might run,
they’ll soon overtake them and when they are done,
revise your opinion if you’ve judged me as cruel,
they’ll divert them with kisses and subdue them with drool.

Prompt words today are pernicious, perfume, postulate, questionable, bike and siblings. Image by Austin Pacheco on Unsplash.

Visiting Mom in Jail

 

(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Coco has a new bad habit of reclining on the terrace table. As I was getting ready to do this prompt, I decided to try to incorporate her into the poem, using these photos as a further prompt.

Visiting Mom in Jail

If it were up to me, we’d both be off and hiking,
but as you can see, this is not to her liking.
You are instrumental for the reason she is balking,
for Instead of hiking, her fingers do the walking.

Clearly, I don’t fancy this. I see no plusses to it.
I denounce this action and I’ll tell you why I rue it.
My phrases you’ll find piquant . They’ll clearly break your heart.
But when they come to moving her, they will not make a start.

As you can see from shots above, they keep Mom behind bars
and only let her out at night to swim beneath the stars.
We feel so sorry for her that when she goes in to bed,
we all stream in behind her and cluster ’round her head.

We’re sure she craves as company the doggies she adores,
though she complains that Zoe farts and brother Morrie snores.
As for me, I lick her face and hands and arms and neck.
She says she does not like it, but I just think, “What the heck?”

As long as we are all on the same side of the bars,
we need to reassure her we consider her as ours.
Meanwhile, in the daytime when we clearly are not able,
I’ll stay as close as I can be by lying on the table!!!

Prompts today are denounce, fancy, plus, piquant, hike and instrumental.

Nomenclaturation

(Dreaming up Words)

Nomenclaturation

The wind like floss, the air like silk,
saxophone music flows like milk.
Hecklers may insult my words,
saying that they are absurd,
and as my life draws near its gloaming,
I admit, attention’s roaming.
Yet I stand by the discrimination
of my nomenclaturation.


I sit in my chair and dream
as words flow by me in a dream.
I reach out for word after word,
selecting some that are absurd,
and when I find they do not rhyme,
I make up words time after time.
The practice didn’t start with me.
How do you think words came to be????

Prompts today are saxophone, heckler, discrimination, gloam, chair and silk.