Humor

Eyes in the Sky

lillian11 Comments

Dr. Neubronner, ahead of his time.
Long before Orwell’s 1984
big brother watching you,
doc released his pigeons.
Cameras strapped to tiny chests
they reported fowl news.
Many photos feather-framed,
neighborhoods on display.

Generations later,
their jobs stolen
usurped by drones.
They simply gather now
where cracked corn is tossed.
And when they do take flight,
their only sign of rebellion?
An occasional shit upon your head.

 

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Written for Day 15 of National Poetry Writing Month: prompt at Toads is to explore the idea of someone’s folly: the concept of building something decorative, eccentric, extravagant. . . transcending the normal range.

Dr Julius Neubronner’s Miniature Pigeon Camera
In 1908 Dr Julius Neubronner patented a miniature pigeon camera activated by a timing mechanism. The invention brought him international notability after he presented it at international expositions in Dresden, Frankfurt and Paris in 1909–1911. Spectators in Dresden could watch the arrival of the camera-equipped carrier pigeons, and the photos were immediately developed and turned into postcards which could be purchased.  Photos from same article in the Public Domain Review. This post is adapted from a poem I originally wrote in 2016.

Hope I gave you a smile with this one! 

Johnny lives on . . .

lillian8 Comments

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”  The character Johnny Castle in Dirty Dancing.

You in 1963. Kellerman’s Resort.
Me in 1987, some movie theater
somewhere nondescript.
You danced. Oh how you danced!

I’ve watched, over and over.
Over thirty plus years.
Your moves,
always the same.

You in 1963,
at Kellerman’s.
Me in my living room,
watching a DVD.

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An odd poem to post on Easter Sunday….BUT I’m following Toads prompt for National Poetry Writing Month, day 12: write a poem to or about someone you love who doesn’t know you love them!
Well, I have family and my beloved of 50 years….and really can’t think of someone who doesn’t know I love them….I’m a very demonstrative person! So best I can do is the character from Dirty Dancing, Johnny Castle. LOVE his moves and have watched the DVD many many times over the years. Also love dancing to Time of My Life with my hubby….but we don’t do the lift! 

The Nuts and Bolts of It

lillian7 Comments

She spoke to me
among all the junk art
hanging in that gallery.
She spoke to me.

Look at her!
Wine-opener for arms,
I do love Chardonnay.
Sieved-ladle-top face,
my emotions do flow.
Sunflower heart,
that’s Pollyanna me.
Beaded, feathered earring-skirt,
like miniature dream catchers
always at hand.
Glued on wire, forever smiles.
Whimsical socks with moving feet,
will gladly tap dance, to any beat.

Forget all the photos
down through the ages.
I knew it then, and I know it now.
She’s definitely me
and that’s why I bought her.

So I’m thinking this morning
sitting staring at her,
what are we made of
and who really are we?

Haphazardly or carefully,
crazily cobbled together?
Maybe that’s it then . . .
and she smiles down at me.
We’re all cobbled together.
We’re all just junk,
junk art at heart.

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Day 3 of NaPoWriMo, national poetry month, where the challenge is to write a poem every day in April!  Today’s prompt from Imaginary Garden with Toads deals with existentialism, as in anything to do with “what is the meaning of life?” What are we really all about? 
Photo of  junk art bought in Bermuda a number of years ago. She hangs in my study where I see her every day – and she makes me smile.

After watching the news . . .

lillian48 Comments

if I put on lacy anklets
chalk hopscotch on my sidewalk
tie these grey locks into pigtails
and read Golden Books,
will everything be fun again?

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Written for Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. I’m “tending the pub today” and look forward to reading all the posts. Photo taken a few weeks ago at the Corvette Diner in San Diego’s Liberty Station – our waitress’ feet!

Childhood Ditty

lillian45 Comments

Skiddely-do, I see you.
Clippity-clop, clompity-clomp,
tromping loudly as we romp.

Skiddely-do, join me too.
Spinning spinning like a top
round and round we never stop.

Skiddely-do, crouch down low.
Creepity-creep, oh so slow.
Skiddely-do is so much fun
until we’re all, skiddely-done.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Today Bjorn asks us to write using alliteration (repetition of the same sound in the beginning of one or more words in a line of poetry).  It strikes me that young childrens’ games and songs often have alliteration, which makes them “catchy”, easy to memorize and repeat…and when they also include an action (clapping hands; stomping feet; creeping crawling) they’re even more fun!  I’m only sorry my grand daughter is not with us in San Diego to make up a tune to this little ditty.  Click HERE to listen when she put a tune to a previous poem I wrote a few years ago. Perhaps you can read this new poem aloud and come up with a tune yourself! 🙂

It’s Surreal!

lillian30 Comments

Ear worm.
1-877-Kars-for-Kids.
Tickling incessant tune.
Words over-and-over-
and over-and-over.
Go in and out the windows . . .

1-877-Kars-for-Kids.
Shut off the radio.
Cadence that kicks
rhyme that sticks.
Like ear muffs close exits
on cold winter days.

1-877-Kars-for-Kids.
I don’t even own a car
but it’s driving
through my ear canal.
Drive it to Panama instead,
out through those locks.

Out of my ear drums.
Quit base thumping,
1-877-Kars-for-
oh just snare it!
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Where are you, Aretha?

Lift the needle,
Just put on the B side,
PLEASE!

Click on the video and listen to it for a bit. I dare you. Beware the ear worm!

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets where today Linda asks us to explore surrealism in poetry. She tells us surrealism in poetry is “the true function of thought. Thought dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason, and outside all aesthetic or moral preoccupations.” To me, this sounds a lot like stream-of-consciousnes writing….which is what’s happening in this poem. Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!

 

Somewhere in the Catskills . . .

lillian19 Comments

Mr. Bobcat trains wildcats
in his purrfect cat-filled town.
Miss Pussycat educates tiny ones,
eradicating copycats all around.

Devilish hellcats fornicate
in cold cathedral catacombs.
Catholics’ scatter catnip,
as holier-than-thou catchalls.

Mr. Tomcat struts vainly
in the town’s decathalon,
like a catty fat-cat victor,
like he’s the cat’s meow.

Catatonic mayor catnaps, dead asleep
as cat burglars roam the littered streets.
When crime reaches cataclysmic levels
catcalls will be heard, Abdicate NOW!

Cats will suddenly get sick as dogs,
as heat rises and dog days come.
Cats will be dogged by fleas
and this poem shall end . . .

in unbelievable catastrophe!

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It’s Poetics Tuesday at dVerse and we’re asked to write a poem that has something to do with cats in the subject matter, as metaphor, or wherever the muse takes us. My muse took me to the Catskill Mountains! There are twenty-nine cats in the body of this poem….some hidden as in educated. Can you find them all?
Pub opens at 3 PM Boston time. Come join us!
Photo from pixabay.com

Aberrant Musings

lillian19 Comments

. . . I could buy the Sea of Tranquility.
Probably more lucrative than Greenland.
Panoramic views.
Exciting ride to get there.
If a cow jumped over it,
how hard could it be?
Me: The Man on the Moon.
King of the Green Cheese!

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Second posting for Quadrille Monday: poem of exactly 44 words sans title, that includes the word “tranquility.”  Illustration from Pixabay.com

Summer Ditty

lillian27 Comments

Freckledee doobie
summer me toonie,
singin’ some sillies with you.

Suckin’ orange slurpees
racin’ thru sprinklers,
singin’ our goofy-do tunes.

Hopscotch my sidewalk
ten in pink chalk,
singin’ hippity hoppity, bippity bop.

Friendship and freckles
grow in the sun.
Besties forever
singin’ as one.

It’s Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. Mish is hosting and asks us to include the word “freckle” or any form of the word in our Quadrille (a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title). Photo from Pixabay.com

I enjoy . . .

lillian5 Comments

making new words
like bubblicious
scantilicious
and summerlicious too.

Merriam-Webster?
Poetic license is much more fun.
Spackle is a muddied sparkle.
Whine is surely weathered shine.

Think about it
and you’ll agree,
playing with words
is fun, you’ll see.

Catapult.
Hmmm what could that mean?
Well it certainly has to be
a tabby tumbled from a tree.

And now dear reader,
tell me true.
Periwinkle. Five-petaled flower
typically, most often colored blue?

Or a pair of stars, way up high,
set all a-twinkle
in the night-time sky.
Those are definitely
my periwinkle!

Image of this almost catapult, from pixaby.com.