Tag Archives: silly poem

Time Out!

6 Replies

 

Time Out!

He was an avid sports fan. Alas, his wife was not.
With box scores and with averages, his mind was fully fraught.
Tennis, football, cricket? It mattered not a whit.
If a ball was fought over, he had to witness it.
Basketball and baseball and soccer were the same
as golf to him. Whatever. For all sport he was game.
At last, his wife had had enough and did what she was able
to cure his wild obsession. She cut the TV cable.

The TV went as black as night. The sports fan sat in shock.
He did not move a muscle. He did not blink or talk.
Then he began to jerk and shake as though having a fit.
Withdrawal from his sports fix seemed the cause of it.
As his delirium tremens overtook his life,
 things were getting better for his kids and wife.
His wife could watch her soap operas, the kids watched their cartoons.
No longer did a sports announcer fill their afternoons.

This furtive arrangement lasted for awhile
until our ballgame junkie figured out their guile.
He moved into a condo to catch up on his sport
and his wife remarried to another sort
who did not know a baseball from a hockey puck.
That such a man existed, she could not believe her luck!
The blessed quiet of her house with no announcer shouting
made her glad she turned her spouse’s inning to an outing!

The Prompts:

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/07/27/fowc-with-fandango-arrangement/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/avid-july-27-2018/

Knees

14 Replies

IMG_0266

Knees

Knees, knees, folks have knees
from Katmandu down to Belize.
In Peru, where they ride llamas
they still have knees in their pajamas.
Further north, up where it freezes,
even Polar bears have kneezes.

Knees, knees, folks have knees
to ogle, fondle, pet and squeeze.
(It’s easy when they’re under kilts.)
Some knees on roller skates or stilts
are scabbed and scaly, skinned and sore
but still they know what they are for.

Knees are great to bounce a baby,
to kick a soccer ball, or maybe
to bend in prayer when they’re in church,
or form a perfect sort of perch
for swains who fall on bended knee
to say, ‘I’d like to marry thee.’

Knees, knees, folks have knees.
In sun they burn, in snow they freeze.
Yet  knees can cross and knees can knock.
Knees can jog you round the block.
Knees are handy and dependable.
And aren’t we glad that knees are bendable?

 

The Daily Addictions prompt today is convenient.  I ask you.  What is more convenient than knees?

In Search of Kerfuffles

8 Replies

Chances are one of these photos depicts a kerfuffle. Click on first photo to enlarge all and view as a slide series.


In Search of Kerfuffles

What, I must ask you, is a kerfuffle?
Is it a soufflé or perhaps a ruffle?
Is it that fuzz that hides under beds
or those stubborn snarls at the back of our heads?
Perhaps they are tasty and come with whipped cream—
a dieter’s nightmare, a sweet tooth’s fine dream.
Do kerfuffles have feathers and beaks on their noses 
to fly overhead and poop on our clotheses?
Does one have to walk them or clean up their messes?
I’m no closer to knowing, in spite of these guesses.
Guess I’ll quit my job and pack up a duffle,
set off in the world to find a kerfuffle.
And when I discover it, I’ll bring it home
and finally be able to finish this poem.

The Ragtag prompt today was kerfuffle.

Blind Date

24 Replies

 

Blind Date

With an air of abandon, she threw off her clothes,
rolled up her hair and night creamed her nose.
She was sure she’d see no one ’til morning at work,
so she removed her bridge with a tug and a jerk.
She peeled off her eyelashes, creamed off her blush.
Did all  this slowly with no need to rush.
A natural girl now, her face put away
for her to reclaim the very next day.

She’s snugged up in flannel, propped up in her bed.
By the end of this evening, her book will be read.
The large bowl of chili that rests on the table
right by the bed, she’ll devour when she’s able.
In between page turns, she’ll take a big bite.
She’ll feast and she’ll read ’til she puts out the light.

Until the night’s silence is shattered by ringing.
The strum of guitars and some romantic singing
completes all the ruckus occurring outside
as she pulls up the covers to cower and hide.
For she has remembered, alas and too late
that this was the night that she had a blind date.
She springs to the bathroom to try to redo
all that she’s lately hastened to undo.

“Just a minute!” she calls, and she hears his reply.
Her beauty procedures are done on the fly.
She rips out her curlers, unwinding, unfurling
the locks she’d just put there for overnight curling.
The mascara wand flies. Rouge is rapidly swiped
across the same cheeks she has recently wiped.
She throws on her clothes, grabs her phone and her purse.
No more time to prepare, and no time to rehearse.

She opens the door to survey her date.
He has a nice face and a shiny bald pate.
She consults her watch and she scolds, “You are late!”
Her side of the tale, she’ll neglect to relate.
They’ll have a fine evening and he will take care
not to mention the curler in back of her hair.
Some things best unspoken are things her date knows—
like her one missing eyebrow and cream on her nose.
These slight imperfections he took in his stride
Which is why one year later she wound up his bride.

.

The Daily Addictions prompt is abandon.

Pied Beauty II

8 Replies

 

 

Today’s prompt being “spoof,” I decided to resurrect this parody of Gerald Manley Hopkins’ poem “Pied Beauty,” one of my first blogs ever back in 2014:

Pied Beauty II

Thanks be to Sara Lee for appled things—
For pies, for apple fritters and for thin-rolled strudel crust;
For pastries of the fruit of Eve and sauce it swims within;
Fresh-cooked in ovens, how their sweet juice sings;
The sugar clotted and pierced— place it on plate we must;
And all taste, for how can tackling it be such a sin?

All things made of flour and Crisco and of apples sweet;
(How can they by nutritionists be so sorely cussed
With words professing they won’t make us thin?)
With their tart flavor are sure our lips to meet;
And meet again.

—Judy Dykstra-Brown

 

And now, the original:

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

–Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

The Ragtag prompt is spoof.

Slashin’ Fashion

45 Replies

 

Slashin’ Fashion

We used to think that what we wore in public really mattered.
No one wanted to appear in clothing ripped and tattered.
But now it seems the custom is to vintage-up our fashion
like it has been ripped apart in the throes of passion.

Everywhere we go, bare skin is brashly popping out
as though we can’t afford new jeans and it’s a thing to flout.
When we gain weight we do not have to buy a bigger jean,
we simply use our scissors to augment the space between!

Old men shake their heads in shock and nearly lose their dentures,
and yet these wanton ladies draw their looks as well as censures,
for when they rouge their cheeks, they do not deal with only two.
Now they have to prep  four cheeks for the world to view.

 

I worked on this poem for over an hour and when I tried to add an illustration, I lost it all!  Nowhere to be found. Nowhere in drafts.  Yes, a bit of cussing. I don’t know about you, but after I’ve written something, I forget it completely, so I had to start out again from scratch.  This time it went more quickly, though, and although it is generally the same idea, you know what they say about the one that got away!

This time I’m copying it into my sticky notes before I try to save and illustrate it.  This is the first time I haven’t done so in a long time and now I remember why I always did so! Image found on the internet.  No credits given.

The Daily Addictions prompt is augment.
The Ragtag prompt is vintage.

Modern Bride

7 Replies

 


Modern 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, crudites 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 prompt today is archaic.

The Weird Wild World: NaPoWriMo 2018, Apr 30

9 Replies

The Weird Wild World 

One hundred fifty calories is what you burn away
per hour if head-banging is how you spend your day;
but if you’re prone to thinking great thoughts you merely may
burn 50 calories per day, or so the experts say.

A raccoon group’s a nursery and bullfrogs do not sleep.
There are no bridges on the Amazon, although it’s very deep.
A human nose remembers fifty thousand scents.
No telling which ones please it or which ones it resents.

The average woman spreads her height in lipstick each five years,
and hippo sweat turns scarlet when they are immersed in fears.
If you find these facts astounding, as strange as facts can get,
please do not attack me. Just check the internet!

The last NaPoWriMo prompt for 2018 is: write a poem that engages with a strange and fascinating fact. It could be an odd piece of history, an unusual bit of art trivia, or something just plain weird