Category Archives: humor

How to

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Day One of NaPoWriMo. The prompt:

[W]rite poems that provide the reader with instructions on how to do something.

Herewith,

how to

How To

There’s so many things I’ve yet to learn,
like where and why and what and who.
So who said what, why is it where
most try to teach “how to?”

How to fall in love;
how to win it back.
How to lose the oaf
when his façade cracks.

How to earn big bucks
quick and easily,
how to file the forms
for your bankruptcy.

How to win respect from
those you disdain,
how to show concern
with sympathy feigned.

I won’t tell you how
to live your life.
It takes patience, care
and sometimes strife.

But I’ll gladly show how
to change your and my luck
with just four installments
of twenty bucks.

A Sketchy Story

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scary

Once upon a stormy night,
it was a dark and dreary time.
Did you hear the one about…
You’re not going to believe this rhyme.

It all begins on Halloween,
this scary tale I’ve yet to weave.
I do not know the ending yet;
it took so long, the start to leave.

I’m sure there’re bats and witch’s brew,
lightning crackling in the sky,
the mournful howls of shrouded souls,
an icy breeze when ghosts glide by.

Something frightening will occur,
a horrid nightmare come to life.
We must escape impending doom.
A curse? a ghoul? a bloodied knife?

Though terror strikes, Good will prevail.
Ghosts disappear with dawn’s first light.
We’ll be forewarned of danger still
in shadows deep on stormy nights.

And so it ends, as all tales do.
The rest is history as they say.
We all live happily ever more.
We live to fight another day.

The details of this scary tale —
as sketchy as they seem to be —
are yours to conjure in your mind
and fill the blanks in as you please.

If any moral lies herein,
I leave that point for you to hone.
The yarns I spin unravel fast.
Collect the threads and weave your own.

dVerse Poetics

Rodent Robbers

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Snap! smacks the mouse trap,
as the spring is spryly sprung.
The trap slaps shut with a jolt abrupt.
Now the deadly deed is done.

Wheeze! breathes the brave mouse,
as she gasps to grasp some air.
That’s how it goes when the cheese she chose
is a ploy plied to ensnare.

Voilà! exclaims the vainglorious vole.
“You disdained and disbelieved
that a twig tip-tapped could trip the trap.
Such a clean scheme I conceived.”

Shush! shouts the shaking mouse.
“It was I who death defied.
Put a plug in your pompous prattling
while we partake of our purloined prize.”

dVerse Meet the Bar: Onomatopoeia 

Let Sleepy Towns Lie

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jail time

The sands of time had ground to dust.
The wheels of justice left the bus.
My day in court long overdue,
due process – it seemed – had stood me up.

This sleepy town gave me arrest
for stealing nest eggs off their nests.
When left to choose ‘twixt right and wrong,
I wrongly chose, then quickly left.

Blind justice sniffed me out that day,
threw me in jail; the key, away.
Each year, society’s ransom grew.
How long until this debt was paid?

One night I knew just what to do.
I poison-penned an IOU,
slipped through the cracks and stole away,
and vowed my life of crime was through.

I bailed from jail, but I’m still not free.
I watch my back, it watches me.
I’ll no more practice to deceive, ‘cuz
from ‘neath her blindfold, justice sees.

dVerse Poetics: Twisted Adages. “For this week’s Poetics, we will start with an adage, or several adages, but we won’t stop there.  I am asking you to craft your poetry around an adage or two that you must change in some significant way.”

I may have gotten a bit carried away with my wordplay, but you know, when it rhymes, it pours. 

I wrote a previous post that fits the bill for this challenge as well. You may find it here.

 

Vice and Virtue

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apples

I am greedy for your charity.
I lust after your chastity.
While some may call me slothful,
I prefer “procrastinatory.”

I admit I’m green with envy at
your temperate humility.
and yet I take great pride in times
my wrath yields to civility.

I’m a glutton for your kindness.
You’re impatient with my pride.
I am sinful, you are virtuous.
You’re Jekyll, I am Hyde.

If you offered me an apple,
in the garden we could hide
With your heavenly companionship,
it’d be one hell of a ride.

Inspired by the dVerse Poetics challenge to write a poem based on the seven virtues (charity, chastity, kindness, temperance, diligence, patience and humility), and the seven deadly sins (greed, lust, envy, gluttony, sloth, wrath and pride). 

Street Names

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From the dVerse blog for Tuesday Poetics: May 29, 2018: “Here’s what I want you to use tonight as inspiration for your poem. I’ve listed some street names for you, and I want you to imagine what the street is like…or who might live there…or how the name came about.”

The street name I selected from the list is Buttgarden Street.

garden

We pass this way most every day,
my faithful dog and I,
and on this street a man we meet,
his mutt heeled at his side.

We greet as neighbors tend to do
a nod and friendly hi.
Our dogs sniff at their private parts;
we turn a modest eye.

A garden for the neighborhood
some volunteers commenced,
fronts this street for several feet
behind a cyclone fence.

“I wish they’d put this somewhere else,”
my neighbor groused aloud.
“This used to be a quiet street.
Now every day’s a crowd.”

True, many gardeners come each day
to tend their tidy beds.
With backs bent low, they weed and sow,
as blood runs to their heads.

Perhaps someday we’ll see green stalks
of veggies grown with care.
But until then there’s just a crop
of butts up in the air.