Tag Archives: silly poem

Bedbound

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Bedbound

I have pain in my back and water on my knee
and not one single friend has expressed sympathy!
I’ve called every doctor in town to explain
my aches and my ills, but it’s all been in vain.

Not one can discover what it is that ails me.
Each remedy that I’ve sought out simply fails me.
The sun hurts my eyes and the rain brings depression.
It hurts when I walk but bed rest brings compression

that freezes my spine so I’m forced to just lie here,
seeking assistance from all who walk by here.
And although I’ve no appetite, still I must eat,
so there’s one request that I have to repeat.

If you’re going to town, could you help me out, please,
and bring me a pizza? Sausage. Extra cheese.
Because I’m so thin, the doctor prescribes beer.
and since there’s a Quik Stop that’s really quite near,

could you pick up a six-pack, some ice cream and chips?
For I simply must add some flesh to my hips.
My bones are protruding so far that they hurt
from the weight of the sheets and the thinnest night shirt.

I’m under the weather, headachy and  thin.
I cannot convey the bad shape that I’m in.
My offspring don’t care and my spouse says I’m making it
hard to stay with me because I’m just faking it.

I have to complain because I must confess it
is impossible when one is ill to repress it.
Although all my friends say I’ve bats in my attic,
these ills you can’t see are not psychosomatic!

Prompts today are under the weather, offspring, flush, repress and stay.

Zombie Ball

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Zombie Ball

Slice of liver, ooze of spleen—
add them to the soup tureen.
See all the pallid corpses preen?
They seek to woo the zombie queen.
Complexions chalky white or green
through the haunted house careen,
much rowdier on Halloween
than all the holidays between.

 

For dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge: Careen

 

Wheeler Dealer

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Wheeler Dealer

Our precocious daughter, swathed in leather, first tattoo
in view below her crop top, reached out and grabbed a few
peanuts from the table and demanded, “Amirite?”
Crumbled off the peanut shells and took a hungry bite.

She had argued that a motorbike was the best solution
to getting her to school with minimum pollution.
(Our driving her to school, consuming so much gas,
creates carbon monoxide at a level that’s most crass.)

“Umitebee” said her father, and I nodded my accord.
As her sole benefactors, just what we could afford
influenced our decision, and instead of motorbike,
we simply told our daughter to go and take a hike!

Prompt words are benefactor, leather, precocious, and amirite,

am·i·rite: exclamation ,INFORMAL, US  am I right? (used to invite confirmation or assert that one’s previous statement is correct) “not much point to it now, amirite?”

The Haunting: Wordle 525. Happy Halloween

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The Haunting

When bells toll at midnight, the chiming of each bell
signals that the scarlet one has begun the knell
to release the ghoulish souls and all the bats of Hell!

They seep up through our floorboards and wait for light of day,
twist themselves into our minds as we helpless lay,
toying with our dreaming as they pause along the way.

They seek out the damp corners everywhere they go,
trying to relieve the parch of the fires below,
cooling off scorched spirits in the river’s flow.

As a sort of trial, they may choose a wild horse,
winding bony fingers through its mane, they guide its course,
streaming through the heather and leaping over gorse.

But when dusk comes to dim the sun and tuck away the light,
it is the time for spirits to begin their fearsome flight
and the frightening of humans will become their main delight.

Then as children mime their horrors while going trick-or-treating,
when they see a darker shadow or hear a wild heart beating,
they may feel more evil presences in spirits they are meeting.

As they go door-to-door or wander a dark lane,
they may detect the real creatures that they seek to feign,
and feel a certain horror that they can’t explain.

So, children out on Halloween, heed each one that you meet.
Be sure the ghoulish one you pass really just wears a sheet,
and remember that a human ghost will be possessed of feet!

 

These are the prompt words for Wordle 525: ring, scarlet, light, damp, fright, trick, chime, bat, floor, ghoulish, trial.

The More the Scarier

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The More the Scarier

When a single apparition tried to haunt the candy store,
they just admired his costume and gave him one treat more
than all the trick or treaters who’d appeared before his visit.
I wonder if his timing isn’t very good or is it?

When he planned his visit, he was counting on horrific,
but when the owner simply said his costume was terrific,
his esteem somehow defrayed his disappointment that
the only creature that he seemed to scare was just the cat.

He returned to the graveyard and stirred his sleeping mate,
insisting on their return—this time as double date.
And their double-haunting in fact turned out so well,
 next year they’re showing up with all the denizens of hell!!!!

Prompt words today are apparition, costume, horrific, esteem and mate. Image by Kevin Escate on Unsplash.

Degrees of Possession

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Degrees of Possession

When a ghost is newly dead and lacking in his knowledge,
is it perhaps required of him to go to haunting college?
Does he become a boogeyman, thereby saving face
only when he’s studied hard and learned to glide with grace
up the stairs and down the stairs and way down to the basement,
polishing his scary moves and practicing debasement?
Will he then earn the esteem of every other ghoul
who passed his apprenticeship at apparition school?

Prompt words for the day are haunting, college, boogeyman, esteem and grace.

Yes, that’s me scaring my sis Patti way back when I was trying to earn my spook degree. If you can think of a better name for this poem, please suggest it. This was as good as I could do.

In a Spuddle

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Click on photos to enlarge.

Forgottenman is the first to add his photo as one. Then Dolly at Koolkosherkitchen contributetd her feline spuddler. Who spuddles! Next?

In a Spuddle

You may think that “spuddle” isn’t a word,
and I agree that it sounds most absurd.
When unsubstantiated, I agreed
that it was unlikely that I’d ever need
a word whose best rhyme turned out to be puddle
or cuddle or muddle or fuddle or huddle,
but when I embarked on an examination,
I found that it wasn’t a mere fabrication,
and though I admit that it seems an anomaly,
as out-of-date as a needlepoint homily,
if you need a word for when you’re forgetful,
fresh from your dreams and still rather fretful,
when you’re befuddled and  in a slight muddle,
the word you might need to describe you is “spuddle.”

Prompt words today are spuddle, unsubstantiated, forgetful, anomaly and examination.

Spuddle: a useful verb from the 17th century that means to work feebly and ineffectively, because your mind is elsewhere or you haven’t quite woken up yet.

 

So, when trying to illustrate this, I had a bit of a problem finding an adequate photo so I had to stage this one. Can you help me out by contributing one of yourself, fresh from sleep or feeling especially feeble or ineffective? Be warned that I’ll add it to make a gallery above, but could be fun.

Additions: a spuddled cat by Dolly at Koolkosherkitchen. Thanks, Dolly!

Dental Discourse: dVerse Poets Compound Word Verse

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Dental Discourse

She could not stand the sad sad sight
of his horrendous overbite.
She arranged to take him to a
dentist, thinking he could do a
makeover.

She asked the doc what he would charge
to make his overhang less large.
The price he set to make each tooth less
was, I fear, greedy and ruthless
overkill.

Thus began their drawn-out dicker
that I think would have gone quicker
if his teeth had been less icky,
and the job a much less tricky 
overhaul.

After much talk, they struck a deal,
both thinking that they’d made a steal.
But then with little else to do,
 she said  if he attempted to
overcharge,

she would have his license lifted
no matter how bloody gifted
he might have been (when this all ends)
at cutting down her toothy friend’s
hangover.

 

 

For dVerse Poets prompt: Compound Word Verse Image by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash

This form consists of 5  five-line stanzas with aabb rhyme schemes, each containing 8 syllables and each stanza concluding with a three-syllable compound word that had one element the same as all other compound words in the final lines of the stanzas. Phew!

The Bishop’s Latest Miracle

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The Bishop’s Usual Cap

The Bishop’s  Latest Miracle

Although his past proclivity was to regurgitate,
allow me to encapsulate the bishop’s present state.
He’s rickety and yet he has no tendency to brood.
In fact, against all reason, he’s in a euphoric mood.

And lest you think nobility has anything to do with it,
when he eats, he has a brand new medicine to chew with it.
Since they’ve added magic mushrooms to his omelets of late,
 he’s finishing his breakfast and licking clean the plate.

He’s ordered a new upper plate and hopes that what he’ll do with it
is to exercise his jaws by learning how to chew with it.
Then he’ll have special omelets morning, noon and night
and justify it, saying he’s practicing his bite.

 

The Bishop’s New Cap

Today’s prompt words are encapsulate, euphoria, rickety, noble and regurgitate,

Casting Out Lines with Tina

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Casting Out Lines with Tina

Night has come to my great sorrow,
Light won’t be here ‘til tomorrow.
Can’t go fishin‘ ‘til the morning,
but I’m wishin’ that the warning
that dad made could be forgotten
and these fish were caught, not boughten!

Night has come to my great sorrow.
Light won’t be here ‘til tomorrow.

Still we will rise before day dawns,
rub sleep from eyes and stifle yawns.
There’s time left to grant our wishes,
bait our hooks and catch those fishes!

This is the trickiest prompt that I’ve seen in a looooong time. Tina’s Zigzag Rhyme rules are the quirkiest and I think I’ve followed them to a “T.” (In no place does she say that it’s not legal to end every line in a rhyme–just that you must do so in lines 5, 6, 11 and 12, so I rhymed every couplet. Words that must be rhymed by Tina’s rules are underlined in my poem, just to make your checking up on me easier. No, that’s not Tina pictured with me. That’s my big sister Patti. I’m pretending to have caught all those fish she’s holding.

Tina’s Zigzag Rhyme is a form created by Christina R Jussaume and found at Poetry Styles (site no longer accessible.)

  • It starts with a sestet, refrain, quatrain and then another refrain and quatrain if you wish.
  • It must be uplifting subject.
  • Rhyme in first two lines is at left,
  • next rhyme is center in lines 3 and 4,
  • and rhyme in lines 5 and 6 is an end rhyme.
  • Refrain is first two lines of poem.
  • After refrain , in the quatrain you use center rhyme, then end rhyme.
  • It is an 8 syllable per line poem. No limit to stanzas but must have,at least one sestet, refrain, and quatrain.
  • Thanks to David at Skeptic’s Kadish for sharing this form. See his poem at his link HERE.