Humor

Come On Along and Join Us

lillian34 Comments

KIT KAT KLUB HEADLINERS TONIGHT

Mr. Goodbar and the Red Hots
     jazz like you’ve never heard it before!

The Sugar Babies, Twizzlers and Sweetarts
     let your imaginations think about that!

Mike & Ike serving the best hootch in town
     great way to cap your payday!

Leave the Missus at home or bring her along
     she’ll enjoy the Big Hunk struttin’ his stuff!

A bit-o-honey for everyone
     AT THE KIT KAT, WE NEVER DISAPPOINT!


It’s Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, I’m hosting and having a bit of fun with the prompt. I’ve listed names of twenty-seven candy bars and asked folks to create a poem that includes at least one of them in their poem. They’re free to include more than one from the list if they choose. If they select a candy with the word “bar” or “bars” in it, IE Oh Henry Bars, they can drop the word “bars/bar” — however, except for dropping that word, they must include the name of the candy exactly as it’s named in the prompt…no words in between etc. Can you find the candy bars I’ve included?

Image created on Bing Create. Candies I’ve included: Kit Kat, Mr. Goodbar, Red Hots, Sugar Babies, Twizzlers, Sweetarts, Mike & Ike, Payday, Big Hunk Bars, Bit-O-Honey

Zoo Keepers See Danger Ahead

lillian23 Comments

A flamboyance followed
the out-of-control antics
of the most orange one.
They dumbly stood on one leg
seemingly unable
to stand on their own two feet.

Conspiracies exploded in numbers
as zookeepers looked on aghast.
These animals were becoming
a colony, a clan,
a bloat on the community,
a herd of blind cows.

Behaviorists know otters may romp,
crocadiles bask, and zebras dazzle.
But humans who gaggle,
needlessly creating a pandemonium,
deliberately crashing the order of things
that’s dangerous to every zoo in the world.

All zoo keepers must issue a warning:
Beware the squeal of a muskrat
in cahoots with a flamboyance.
Remember the movie “The Birds” –
they gather precariously on a high wire,
the murder creating the cacophony.
We cannot let them succeed.

Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is April Fool’s Day and in keeping with the date, Melissa asks us to write a poem that is partially a lie and partially the truth. She suggests a 60% to 40% ratio.

Not sure about my percentages….but suffice it to say, my poem is not about a zoo. There is much truth here however. Note the use of actual names for groups of animals.
Flamboyance: a group of flamingos (who are orange and often stand on one foot)
Conspiracy: a group of lemurs
Colony: a group of ants
Clan: a group of hyenas
Bloat: a group of hippos
Herd of cows
Romp: a group of otters
Bask: a group of crocodiles
Dazzle: a group of zebras
Gaggle of geese
Pandemonium: a group of parrots
and finally, a Murder is a group of crows.

Image by Kev from Pixabay

Let’s Talk Today

lillian16 Comments

ME: Want to know the fourcast? As in f-o-u-r?

YOU: The forecast? Don’t you mean as in f-o-r-e?

ME: No, the four year fourcast.

YOU: How can meterologists do that?

ME: Well, they can do it now. They watch the gulf-stream pattern, from the Gulf of America and the blow-hard-wind data from Mount McKinley. They even have access to X-rated data.

YOU: So what’s their prediction?

ME: A four year blizzard! Be prepared!

YOU: How?

ME: Just head to a fabric store.

YOU: Do those exist anymore?

ME: Go to the one on Blue Avenue and head to the left side of the store. They have a good supply of outerwear patterns. Get plenty of heavy fabric. Take it to a seamstress and tell her to make of it a parka. For your soul then, wear it outside every day and resist the storm!


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today is Prosery Monday and Lisa is our pubtender. She provides us with the lines
“Make of it a parka
For your soul.”
from Before you know you owned it by Alice Walker. We are to include these exact words, in this exact order, in a 144 word piece of prose/flash fiction. We are however, allowed to add punctuation or change the punctuation. Image made on Bing Create.

Be my Lou for the day . . .

lillian22 Comments

. . . remember that old song?
Of course you do. Sing it with me!
Skip to my Lou, my darlin’!

Let’s skip stones across a pond
and then, chalk in hand,
draw hopscotch on a sidewalk.
Later you can pour me a Scotch
and we’ll pour over old photo albums
laughing at our childhood antics.

A bit puckered out and perhaps tipsy too,
we’ll gawk at the stars, sitting on the stoop.
Stooped shoulders with a myriad of wrinkles.
Madeline L’Engle’s wrinkles in time
singing Skip to my Lou, my darlin’!
Oh let’s just skip the malarkey and admit it.

We’re septuagenarians in love with life!


Melissa has us zeugmatically speaking for today’s Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. She explains, “zeugma is defined by Merriam-Webster as ‘a figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses.’ Zeugma is a rhetorical device that is used to emphasize, add humor, or surprise a reader.” Hopefully, I’ve done this correctly with the words skip and pour. The words Scotch, stoop, and wrinkle are played with a bit here as well. Madeline L’Engle’s famous novel, A Wrinkle in Time, is also referenced . . . sort of!

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Puss in Boots Fans!

lillian26 Comments

That nine lives saying?
A reincarnation tale.

Rowan, Puss’ cousin, was the original one.
He died on a cold winter’s night
giving rise to number two, Tabby Tat.
Nearsighted, she met her demise
squinting down a busy street.
Number three was Kit the Kat,
catapulted to fame by a candy bar.
Sugar highs and alley fights
finally did him in.
Mouser came next, not very smart,
he followed a mouse into a trap
and was last heard to say, oh crap!
The next reincarnation came in a far away land.
Penelope the Puma,
sadly and cruelly killed by a hunter’s hand.
Her ghost became the charming Ms. Cheetah,
seduced to her death by a devilish Tom.
Lorna the Lynx was up next.
She lolled through life until her untimely death.
And now if you’ve been counting with me
we’ve come to the ninth penultimate life.
That final reiteration,
none other than Felicity Feline,
intensely happy, true to her name.
I am delighted to report, she found a happy home
with the prolific painter, Mr. Louis Wain.
Her portrait, painted in joyous colors,
stands out in his collection.
And so, while all those other eight are forgotten
Felicity lives on in perpetuity,
frozen in time, displayed on an easel,
for generations to visit and see.


Screenshot

Written for NaPoWriMo day 23, off prompt.

Written for dVerse Tuesday Poetics on prompt where Melissa is introducing us to the English artist Louis Wain. He is “best known for his drawings of anthropomorphised cats. Born in Londin in 1860…he attended the West London School of Art, where he would go on to teach for a time….In 1884…The Illustrated London News was first to publish Wain’s art. It wasn’t until 1886 that he received more widespread recognition….he was elected president of the National Cat Club….he was a prolific artist. During his lifetime, he drew thousands of cats (it is estimated that the number exceeds 150,000.” Melissa asks us to choose one of his paintings/drawings she includes in her prompt, and to “write a poem inspired by the artwork. Simple enough, right? There’s just one catch – you may not use the word cat anywhere in your poem, including the title.”

I selected Wain’s painting, Untitled.

I had some fun with this….using many different words that refer to cats: puss, tabby, kit, mouser, puma, cheetah, tom, lynx, and feline. I also had some fun with wordplay, without using the word “cat” as in the Kit Kat candy bar, and catapulted.

Hey Diddle Diddle – the Real Story

lillian15 Comments

Yes, the dish ran away with the spoon,
but Mother Goose got it wrong.
She laid an egg with this one.
It was not a happily-ever-after tale.

Turns out the dish was a cad.
A saucer with sterling designs,
and always a cups man.

Young utensil that she was,
she never guessed his real intention
to tarnish her reputation.

He led her past the infamous cow
the one who jumped over the moon.
Romancing her under cover of night,
surely, he thought, she’d swoon.

But alas, there were too many stars that night,
revealing what he truly was really made of.
Just cheap melamine, not Royal Doulton or Spode.

Avoiding every advance he dished out,
she ran back to the cat and the fiddle.
She maintained her sterling reputation,
after all,
she was always a respectable ladle!


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe where today is Open Link Night and poets may post any one poem of their choosing.

This little diddle is an edited version of NaPoWriMo’s day 22 prompt: “to write a poem in which two things have a fight. Two very unlikely things, if you can manage it. Like, maybe a comb and a spatula. Or a daffodil and a bag of potato chips. Or perhaps your two things could be linked somehow – like a rock and a hard place – and be utterly sick of being so joined. The possibilities are endless!”

For those of you not familiar with this Mother Goose nursery rhyme, it goes like this:
Hey, diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Image is from Bing Create.

Miss Violet

lillian1 Comment

Violet took quickly to her namesake.
Childhood imp and very active child,
she continually sang, half-shouted

I’m a one-eyed, one-horned,
flyin’ purple people eater
zooming round the house.

Cape billowing behind her,
gramma’s purple organza apron
pilfered for special effects.

Decades later, Miss Violet,
now the town’s eccentric spinster,
specialized in all things purple.

Her garden, replete with verbena,
bearded iris, campanula,
and sweetly scented lilac bushes.

Regular church goer she was.
Doused in lavender eau de cologne,
her scent preceded her down the aisle.

Her orchid shaped brooch
sparkled with amethyst gem stones
upon her heliotrope cloche hat.

She hugged parishioners and priest alike
saying her goodbyes.
Shedding from her feather boa
gifting them all a bit of her purple.


Written for NaPoWriMo day 21. Today we’re to explore a color in a poem. Image from Bing Create.

In a Peanuts World

lillianLeave a comment

In Lucy’s words:
Snoopy’s on a stamp?
What is wrong with philatelists?
Are they all dog lovers?
Do they all have beagles?
I’ll bet they all have
at least one girl in their family!
A mother, a sister, an aunt.
When you look at it that way,
they probably have more!
I’m smart.
I give sound advice for five cents a pop.
I’m confident and strong.
You’ll be calling me
Madame President some day!
So WAKE UP!
It’s Lucy for the WIN!!!

Screenshot


Written for day 15 at NaPoWriMo where we’re directed to a site that includes postage stamps from many countries and asked to pick one and write about it. Not one of my better poems…..but for day 15, it’ll have to suffice.

A Silly Tale

lillian2 Comments

Mr. and Mrs. Tabby Cat
sat down to have a very long chat.
They’d just returned from quite a sail
that really produced quite a tale.

They bravely decided to set afloat
in what they thought was a sturdy boat.
They left at night under a harvest moon
only to be met by a horrific typhoon.

The seas roiled and got very rough,
they soon decided they’d had enough.
Now back home, they sat in a puddle
whiskers rattled, feelings a muddle.

Boots came off, dropped with a plop.
“What can we do so our spirits don’t flop?”
“I’ll bake a pie,” said Mrs. Cat. “We’ll savor its scent
then eat, until we’re quite content.”

Tummies full, their dreams so sweet
and now this prompt is finally complete!

Image created in Bing Create.

This was quite a prompt for day 13 at NaPoWriMo! Yes, April is National Poetry Writing Month and the challenge is to write a poem every day.

Today’s involved prompt: create a word list that includes 5 words related to the senses, two concrete nouns, and two verbs. Then come up with a rhyming word for each of those 7 words! See my list below. And then, of course, write a poem using all those words, trying to include the rhyme in the poem! It’s what I call a sudoku prompt!

5 sense words chosen with they rhyming word
sweet : complete         for taste
scent : content             something you smell
rough : enough           for touch
plop : flop                   a sound you can hear
puddle : muddle         something you can see

Two concrete nouns and their rhyming words
cat : chat
moon: typhoon

Two verbs and their rhyming word
sail : tale
float : boat

What’s the Real Story Behind that Image?

lillian27 Comments

Sporting a Gibson girl hairstyle,
always the first to beguile.
She artfully arched her eyebrows,
never intended for marriage vows.

Expelled from finishing school
because she’d broken many a rule.
Back at home with daddy dear,
all his money was temptingly near.

She arose very early that particular day,
absolutely not allowing any kind of delay.
Murder weighed heavily on her crafty mind,
the perfect crime, she’d cleverly designed.

Poison added to daddy’s cornflakes,
doused all over his yummy pancakes.
And wouldn’t you know, one glorious week later
she was named the estate’s sole curator.

Grinning, she thought, no need for a suitor,
and there’s no one that would possibly suit her.
Now she’s contentedly ensconced, happily rich,
fully independent and a liberated bitch.

Written for Day 10 of NaPoWriMo. Also using at OLN Thursday at dVerse.

I had so much fun with this one! 

The challenge today was to “write a poem based on one of the curious headlines, cartoons, and other journalistic tidbits featured at Yesterday’s Print, where old new stays amusing, curious, and sometimes downright confusing.” The image above is from The Buffalo Times, New York, June 12, 1910. I think it might be an ad for breakfast cereal?